The seabed-to-surface engineering, construction and services contractor to the offshore energy industry Subsea 7 has ordered the OCTOPUS suite of products for the recently delivered Pipelay/Heavy Lift vessel Seven Borealis.
This latest addition to the Subsea 7 fleet is a state-of-the-art vessel that shall be involved in ultra-deep and deepwater projects in the world’s deepest and harshest environments.
Amarcon is appointed to deliver a motion monitoring and ship response forecast system, known in the industry as OCTOPUS-Onboard. The order for Subsea 7 is a very extensive one. One of the functionalities is a crane monitoring system. The motions of the heave compensated 5,000t crane are monitored and displayed real-time within OCTOPUS-Onboard.
In addition to the onboard motion monitoring & forecast functionality, the Seven Borealis shall also be equipped with a DP Capability Forecast. This enables the production of DP (Dynamic Positioning), plots based on forecast thruster utilization. As a result of that, a forecast is given within OCTOPUS-Onboard if the vessel is capable of maintaining her position and heading in changing environmental and weather conditions, hours and days ahead.
By using OCTOPUS-Online all the collected motions and accelerations from the Seven Borealis are sent to a central database server so authorized users at the Subsea 7 office can view and analyze the recorded motion and acceleration data. Subsea 7 also ordered Amarcon’s hydrodynamic analysis software OCTOPUS-Office for calculations of sea keeping characteristics of the Seven Borealis prior to new pipe lay projects.
In 2011 Seaway Heavy Lifting ordered OCTOPUS-Onboard for her Oleg Strashnov, which is operated under a Joint Venture together with Subsea 7. Amarcon’s Managing Director Leon Adegeest shows his appreciation: “It is great to see that these unique vessels, involved in very complex and sophisticated offshore projects, have chosen OCTOPUS-Onboard to assist them in their everyday operations.”
OCTOPUS can be installed on newbuild vessels and on ships already in operation.
[mappress] Subsea World News Staff, May 21, 2012; Image: Subsea 7