Pioneering Spirit Stinger Completed

A 150-meter steel structure that weighs about 4,200 tonnes was recently loaded out at Vlissingen yard.

The structure is a stinger, a frame that will hang behind the “world’s largest” vessel the Pioneering Spirit.

The stinger is used to lead the pipe to the bottom of the sea during the installation phase.

Smulders was responsible for the production and assembly of the stinger. It was constructed at Iemants in Belgium and assembled in Vlissingen. Including the transition frame to be suspended between the hull and the stinger, the pipelaying unit will be 210 metres long.

Pioneering Spirit’s pipelay tension capacity will be 2,000 t, doubling the capacity of Allseas’ Solitaire and thereby surpassing it as the world’s largest pipelay vessel.

The vessel is expected to start offshore operations in summer of 2016, with removal of the Yme topsides in the Norwegian North Sea.