Tidal Transit’s crew transfer vessels (CTVs) Eden Rose and Tia Elizabeth are the first two in the company’s fleet to be fitted with Marfle data collectors, after the UK CTV operator signed an agreement with the marine fleet productivity specialists Marfle.
Tia Elizabeth is currently on long term charter at the Gwynt y Mor offshore wind farm off the coast of Wales and Eden Rose is working for Siemens at the Westermost Rough offshore wind farm.
The data collectors will gather information relating to a range of criteria including, i.a., fuel consumption, speed, as well as engine temperatures and pressures. The Marfle system will also provide important alerts about a wide range of malfunctions or operating parameters which have exceeded their normal limits.
The agreement with Marfle enables Tidal Transit to further enhance the analysis of its vessel operational costs and the key performance indicators associated with voyages made by its fleet of offshore wind farm crew transfer vessels.
“I am expecting the information and analyses collected by the Marfle system to be beneficial in many ways” , said Tidal Transit Commercial Director, Leo Hambro . “The web based reports will undoubtedly be useful to our skippers, crews and vessel maintenance teams, and I am expecting our clients’ marine management teams to be very interested in the cost and efficiency analyses.”
“Eden Rose and Tia Elizabeth are from different generations of our vessel lineage, so we are particularly interested to monitor the effects of the on-going development of specific technologies on vessel performance,” Hambro added.
“There is an international demand to reduce the cost of producing energy from renewable sources, as was clearly shown by the strike prices awarded in the latest UK CfD auction round. When an offshore wind farm moves into its long term operations phase, vessel charters are one of the significant operational costs. I expect the Marfle system to provide data that is of use to our clients in managing vessel utilisation,” Leo Hambro concluded.