Posted on August 29, 2022
BAR Technologies yesterday handed over the first of its revolutionary new BARTech 30 crew transfer vessels to leading offshore energy support vessel (OESV) operator Seacat Services.
As part of a ceremony at BAR Technologies’ Portsmouth, U.K., headquarters, the vessel was officially named Seacat Columbia by Ian Baylis, founder, Seacat Services and Martin Whitmarsh, BAR Technologies chair.
The BARTech 30 has been designed to address two major challenges facing the offshore wind industry: vessel efficiency—and emissions reduction—and the comfort in transfer, and subsequent effectiveness, of offshore wind engineers.
Offshore wind farm developers and owners are now beginning to look in earnest at the rates of fossil fuel consumption in wind farm service vessels. And, if vessels have to return to port because offshore wind technicians are affected by sea-sickness in travel the result is expensive downtime for the project owner.
ACTIVE FOILING SYSTEMS
With its 30 meter ProA design, and active foiling systems to correct for pitch and roll, the BARTech 30 is designed to minimize vessel motion and fuel burn – leading to an average increase in stability across all sea states of up to 70% and a reduction in total emissions of 30% over a typical operational profile.
With the vessel’s ability to operate in more challenging conditions than the current catamaran designs, offshore wind turbines can be serviced over a greater number of sea states, giving wind farm owners more opportunities to better and more cost effectively provide turbine maintenance.
“BAR Technologies was established to leverage the highest level of engineering expertise and understanding of hydrodynamics from the fields of Formula 1 racing and the Americas Cup respectively, to take on some of the biggest challenges in vessel efficiency and maritime decarbonization,” said Martin Whitmarsh, chair, BAR Technologies. “Alongside our pioneering wind propulsion technology for the shipping industry, our latest developments in crew transfer vessel design, demonstrated by the BARTech 30, are helping to significantly mitigate the ‘last mile’ of carbon emissions in offshore wind development and construction.”
