Cosco Shipping (Qidong) Offshore has entered into an agreement with the US vessel designer Friede & Goldman for a new Jones Act-compliant wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV), according to a social media post from the Houston-based company.
The vessel design will be based on Friede & Goldman’s BargeRack feeder barge system, a solution that is said to eliminate barge motions as it involves lifting the barge together with wind turbine components as the jack-up vessel elevates.
As reported in January, the US company’s BargeRack WTIV design was granted Approval in Principle (AIP) by the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) at the beginning of this year.
According to Friede & Goldman’s website, its integrated solution utilises United States’ existing infrastructure, removes the need for motion compensation equipment, and extends the operational weather window.
”Typical feeder solutions are inherently risky due to feeder vessel motions with the impact on equipment transfer. We’ve solved this problem by completely eliminating the feeder vessel motion, as well as reducing the feeder vessel cost by an order of magnitude compared to other feeder vessels”, Robert Clague , Vice President of Engineering at Friede & Goldman, said after the WTIV solution received the AIP from ABS.