Seafox, Ardent Decommission Dogger Bank Met Masts

Seafox informed today, 1 December, that it decommissioned two Forewind’s Dogger Bank meteorological masts at the end of September, together with Ardent as the main subcontractor for the works.

The Forewind consortium installed the met masts four years ago to gather data and assess the feasibility of offshore wind projects at the Dogger Bank site.

The masts consisted of an 80-meter lattice tower on a 16m² platform, which was mounted on a single pile, secured by a 15-meter diameter wide and 7-meter tall suction bucket.

Project preparation and assurance were undertaken by the project team including Seafox, Ardent, SSE, Global Maritime, Universal Foundations and Searoc, ensuring that the removal of the structures were as successful as possible. Seafox and Ardent teamed up with SPT Offshore to carry out engineering, fabrication, testing and deploying of a project specific interface frame to control the original suction bucket pump system.

Prior to removing the masts Seafox and Ardent performed a pre-removal survey to reduce any uncertainties and to confirm the proposed removal procedure of the weather data measuring equipment, lattice towers, platforms and suction bucket monopiles.

Ollie Flattery, SSE Project Manager said: “The successful and safe removal of the structures is a great accolated for all parties involved in the project and a clear sign of the one team ethos, professionalism and diligence of the entire project team.”

According to Seafox, the team is now looking at options for re-using the foundations, platforms and lattice towers.