Norway-based designer and shipbuilder Vard is helping the French cabling firm Orange Marine expand its fleet of cable ships.
This is the second time Orange Marine has opted for Vard, following the cable laying and repair vessel Pierre de Fermat of VARD 9 01 design.
The new vessel, announced in December last year, features VARD 9 03 design, specially developed for the maintenance of submarine cables, both fibre-optic telecommunication cables and inter-array power cables used in offshore windfarms.
Colombo Dockyard is in charge of building the ship, with experience from building the cable laying and repair vessel of VARD 9 01 KDDI Cable Infinity in 2019 to Kokusai Cable Ship of Japan.
Vard has developed the vessel design according to the Orange Marine operating requirements with special attention to the vessel hull in terms of good sea-keeping capabilities and low fuel consumption.
In addition, Vard currently has two power cable laying vessels under construction. The VARD 9 04 for Prysmian , and the recently signed contract for the VARD 9 02 design for Van Oord .
Vard’s previous experience also includes design and construction of the offshore construction and cable laying vessel Connector now owned by Jan De Nul Group, and the inter-array cable laying vessel of VARD 9 01 design Seaway Aimery built at Remontova Shipyard for Siem Offshore in 2016.