DEME has chartered Seajack’s installation vessel Scylla to take over the Moray East wind farm installation contract from its own vessel, Orion, which was heavily damaged in a last-minute crane accident. Despite this setback and the outbreak of the pandemic the first jacket was installed in time, the company states. 

The Orion was seriously damaged while performing one of the final tests of the vessel’s crane. During an overload test lifting a 5,500-tonne barge, the crane hook snapped and caused the barge to drop and the crane to collapse as a result of the backlash.

While the investigation is ongoing, DEME had to find a replacement vessel for the East Moray offshore wind farm, which was scheduled to be Orion’s first job and start per July.

The Scylla will install a total of 103 jacket foundations, a hundred for the wind turbines and three for the offshore substations.

“Despite the many challenges brought to us by the coronavirus and the incident with the crane of Orion, our dedicated Moray East project team and all of our partners have done their utmost to make sure this complex project stays on schedule by closely coordinated teamwork”, comments Bart De Poorter, General Manager DEME Offshore. “In these unprecedented times and given this is one of the most complex EPCI projects in offshore wind history, this is a real achievement.”