Dutch ship owner C-Bed has contracted Wärtsilä Ship Design to supply the design for rebuilding its seismic survey vessel, the Viking II, for use as a hotel vessel to accommodate and transfer service personnel working on offshore wind farms.
After the conversion, the vessel will have accommodation and hotel facilities for 125 people and will feature a heave compensated gangway. The converted vessel will fulfill the requirements for special purpose ships and will in the future be named Wind Innovation.
The rebuild project is being carried out at the Fayard AS shipyard in Denmark and is expected to be completed during the first quarter of 2016. The contract with Wärtsilä was signed in September.
“This is a fast delivery project and it was essential that our naval architects could respond to the owner’s needs quickly. This we are able to achieve and our design will result in a vessel capable of operating efficiently in challenging sea and weather conditions with a high level of passenger comfort,” said Ove H. Wilhelmsen, Managing Director of Wärtsilä Ship Design Norway.
Wärtsilä says that conversion projects are becoming of increasing interest for owners since there is a current over-supply of ships in many of the offshore application markets.
The Finnish company provided the original designs for the Viking II earlier known as Veritas Viking II, which was delivered in 1999 to the original owners, Eidesvik of Norway.