Posted on September 18, 2023
Construction of a new ship that will help in the maintenance of a major offshore wind farm begins Wednesday morning at Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding.
The Sturgeon Bay shipyard is building the HAV 832, a 288-foot-long service operation vessel (SOV), for CREST Wind, a joint venture between maritime industry companies Crowley and ESVAGT. SOVs are purpose-built ships used to transport technicians to service and sustain operation of wind turbines at sea.
Crowley will have an onsite construction management group on hand during the build. HAV Design AS, a Norway-based SOV design firm, designed the vessel.
The new ship is planned to go into service in 2026, when it will serve the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, a 2,135-acre wind farm being built by Dominion Energy about 27 miles off the coast of Virginia, under a long-term charter to Siemens Gamesa, a German-Spanish wind engineering company.
Crowley is a U.S. maritime, energy and logistics solution company serving the offshore wind market. ESVAGT is a Denmark-based provider of SOV service in Europe.
“We are proud to be associated with important green projects like this,” Marco Galbiati, CEO of Fincantieri Marine Group, said in a news release when the contract for the SOV was signed in January. “The SOV market is one of the most interesting and important markets for our company.”
Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding also is currently building liquefied natural gas (LNG) bunker barges, including for Crowley, and supporting the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard in its construction of the U.S. Navy’s new Constellation-class frigates.
One of the world’s largest and most diversified maritime companies, Fincantieri operates 18 shipyards on four continents. It operates in the U.S. through its subsidiary Fincantieri Marine Group, with shipyards Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding, Fincantieri Marinette Marine and Fincantieri ACE Marine in Green Bay serving commercial and government customers.
