DEME Group’s new multi-purpose vessel Living Stone was launched yesterday at the LaNaval shipyard in Spain by Sarah Tommelein, wife of Bart Tommelein, Vice-Minister-President of the Government of Flanders and Flemish Minister for Energy.
The vessel is scheduled to be delivered in the second quarter of 2017 and will head to its first project at the Merkur offshore wind farm in Germany, 45 km north of Borkum in the North Sea, for the installation of inter array cables. It will also be deployed for the cable installation at the world’s largest offshore wind farm, Hornsea Project One in the UK.
DEME, through its subsidiary Tideway, signed a contract for the vessel with La Naval in January 2015, shortly after it placed an order for the self-propelled jack-up vessel Apollo.
The vessel will serve transport and installation projects as well as offshore power cable installations, interconnectors for the future European Supergrid amongst others.
The Living Stone features DP3 (Dynamic Positioning 3) capability and has been designed as an environmentally friendly vessel with dual fuel engines with LNG being its prime fuel. It can accommodate a crew of up to 100 persons and will be operated by Tideway.