The vessel is being built by Keppel O&M's shipyard in the US, Keppel AmFELS, and will be Jones Act compliant. Scheduled for delivery in 2023, it will be available for charter hire to offshore wind developers, in support of several US wind projects. The vessel is expected to be fully utilised on US East Coast projects exceeding 5 GW of US offshore wind construction through to 2027.
The vessel's hull will have a length of 472 ft, a width of 184 ft and a depth of 38 ft. Its features include a main crane with a boom length of 426 ft and an expected lifting capacity of 2200 t. The wind turbine installation vessel will have accommodations for up to 119 people. The vessel is designed to handle current turbine technologies as well as next generation turbine sizes of 12 MW or larger and will also be capable of the installation of foundations for turbines and other heavy lifts.
Work on the vessel, which will be named Charybdis, has commenced with a keel laying ceremony - where steel is laid to form the first part of the keel - held yesterday at Keppel AMFELS' yard in Brownsville, Texas, US, marking the start of a major construction milestone.
For more news and technical articles from the global renewable industry read our latest issue of Energy Global magazine.
Energy Global’s Winter 2020 issue
The Winter issue of Energy Global provides a range of technical articles covering technological advancements and future outlooks in the renewables sector, from companies including CorPower Ocean, Rystad Energy, Black & Veatch, Voltalia, FUERGY, and more.
