DCN Diving deployed Saab Seaeye Cougar XT remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to perform cutting off 194 grouting hoses from 97 structures at Godewind 1 & 2 wind farms.
The company incorporated a tooling package created by DCN Diving into Cougar XT Compact to conduct the work.
The task for the Cougar also included offloading 58 tons of the grouting hose into containers.
Fred Bosman , ROV operations manager at DCN Diving explained the technique used:
“We first attached an hydraulic clamp on the upper part of the grouting hose, which was connected to both Cougar and vessel crane. Once the clamp was secured to the grouting hose the ROV was pulled back from the clamp so the hose was no longer connected to the ROV but only to the vessel crane.
“Our next step was to cut the hose as close as possible to the lower side of the hose, and the last highest cut just underneath the coupling. At this time the hose was no longer connected to the structure and the vessel crane recovered the hose to the deck where it was stored in an open-top container until off-loaded in port.
“Depending on how close we could position the cutter to the couplings, the remaining hose lengths were about 6 m long and weighed about 300 kg each.”