Esbjerg Shipyard in Denmark will build the first ordered ESNA Sea Puffin Surface Effect Ship (SES) Daughter Craft, to be delivered in early 2018 to WindPartner, an independent shipowner and ship manager based in Kristiansand, Norway.
The high-performance 15m long SES daughter craft employs an air cushion for active motion damping, allowing offshore wind turbine access capability as for a much larger vessel, ESNA stated. The vessel is deployable by a standard 15-tonne davit system and is designed to distribute personnel from mother ships or platforms to offshore wind turbines.
“We like to say that ‘a SES punches above its length’. The air cushion takes away motions, giving transit motions and access to offshore turbines as had it been a much larger vessel,” ESNA’s Naval Architect Nere Skomedal said. “This is really the key to why we have so much faith in and interest for this daughter craft. Sea Puffin provides a significantly larger weather window than competing daughter craft and reduces the need of support from land based vessels”.
WindPartner will offer the vessel for charter to vessel owners and wind farm operators to support, for instance, an accommodation vessel in an installation campaign.
“The Sea Puffin is really an optimum SES design. It is just the right size where there the SES properties provide greatly improved performances compared to other vessel solutions” , ESNA Naval Architect Trygve Halvorsen Espeland explained. “Because of the limited vessel size the fuel consumption is also low. Replacing the lifting hook with passenger seats, it can be used as a 12pax fuel efficient near-shore crew transfer vessel”.
Development of the Sea Puffin has been supported by the Carbon Trust’s Offshore Wind Accelerator, Regional Research Council Agder (RFFAgder) and The Sørlandet Knowledge Foundation (SKF). ENOVA and Innovation Norway is supporting WindPartner with building the first vessel.
ESNA, a Norwegian company specializing in Surface Effect Ship (SES) design, introduced the vessel design in the fourth quarter of 2015 .