Posted on August 1, 2025
The 91-metre-long Marmac 306 barge was built in Louisiana by Norwegian cable company Nexans, and is now digging a trench for the subsea export cables which will transmit the electricity generated by Equinor’s Empire Wind 1 project to the Brooklyn power grid.
It is the very first vessel built in the US to undertake this kind of work, which international vessels are not allowed to do. Nearshore installation must be done by a domestically produced craft.
Operated by Crowley Maritime Corporation, around 40 crew members man the vessel’s various systems, including its vertical injector which shoots jets of water into the seabed to blast out a 15-foot-deep ditch for the cables to then be laid in.
Its relatively shallow draught means it can only operate in the shallow waters around Coney Island in South Brooklyn, with other deep-sea equipped vessels taking over for work further out in the ocean. Empire Wind 1 will be located around 18 miles offshore.
Nexans plans to use the Marmac 306 to transport cable in the US after it finishes its work for Empire.
The vessel can also be reconfigured for other kinds of work, such as linking power grids to connecting offshore oil and gas operations, as well as supporting projects in Europe.
