Caithness Map :: Links to Site Map Great value Unlimited Broadband from an award winning provider  

 

Mini-ship Green Isle Begins Work In Pentland Firth

23rd August 2015

Photograph of Mini-ship Green Isle Begins Work In Pentland Firth

The most modern vessel in the Far North of Scotland's 'marine renewables' fleet is conducting debut operations in the Pentland Firth's Inner Sound this week. (commences 24.08.15).

The brand-new many-purpose mini-ship Green Isle is being accompanied on her mission off Canisbay by the survey vessel Lodesman, that has been a regular visitor to Gills Harbour this year.

The 27.7-metre long Green Isle was delivered 'in record time' earlier this summer to her owners Green Marine UK Ltd, of Stromness, Orkney from the Damen Shipyards, in the Netherlands.

The powerful rectangular-shaped steel craft is technically a Multi-cat 2712 with several special design features specified by Green Marine UK for her planned career at assisting in installing and recovering tidal and wave energy devices, seabed surveying, moving 'heavy-lift' barges and general towing operations; she has a maximum registered 'bollard pull' of almost 35 tonnes.

In an official 'Notice to Mariners' Green Marine UK state that between 24.08.15 and 26.08.15 Green Isle is contracted to MeyGen Ltd for recovery of small items from the recently-surveyed precise route planned for laying cables on the seabed of the Inner Sound from the company's landfall at Ness of Quoys, Canisbay, to the locations off Stroma Island where the four pioneering, electricity-generations 'tidal turbines' are due to be installed next year (2016).

Cable-laying operations are planned for next month; the sheathed cable-lines will be 'weighted-down' on the seafloor from the turbine sites to a location c. 600 metres off the Canisbay headland.

From there, the cables for carrying electricity will the 'threaded through' one of four ducts directionally-drilled from the shore earlier this summer, so that the cables are not exposed to chaffing due to wave actions on coastal rocks.

Tasks for the Green Isle's crew include recovering stainless-steel 'holders' for ADCPs (Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers) previously installed on the TSC (Turbines Subsea Cables) route on the 35 metre-deep swept-bare Caithness flagstone floor of the narrow 1.5 miles-wide channel separating Stroma, Caithness's only island, from the Canisbay shoreline.

Green Marine Ltd's MD is Skipper Jason Schofield, a member of the well-known Sinclair fishing family from Stromness, Orkney; his father-in-law Skipper Angus Sinclair at one time owned and operated Orcades Viking, then the UK's biggest trawler.

Green Isle is being accompanied on the task by Lodesman, a specialist vessel in underwater Remote Operated Vehicles (ROVs) tasks, owned by Roving Eye Enterprises, of Orphir on Scapa Flow, Orkney.

Its boss, Mr Keith Bichan sent a 'support' letter to Gills Harbour Ltd, the community company that owns and operates Gills Harbour, backing its plans to enhance the facilities at its Inner Basin to allow safe overnight berthing and all-tides access for workboats, such as powerful little multi-cats.

It had been intended to hand-deliver the letter last week to Scottish Energy Minister Rt. Hon. Fergus Ewing MSP, but his visits to the MeyGen Ness of Quoys site and Gills Harbour had to be postponed because thick fog over Caithness made landings impossible at Wick John O'Groats Airport.

Arrangements are being made to send it on during this coming week.

 

Related Businesses

 

Related Articles

21/10/2022
Three Cats At Gills HarbourThumbnail for article : Three Cats At Gills Harbour
Two catamaran work-boats berthed at Gills Harbour this week with the trans-Pentlnd ferry MV Alfred, also a catamaran, in the background.   The larger workboat is MPC Athenia which was being used as a floating base or ROVs - remote underwater vessels, for detailed inspections on the three turbines operating at the MeyGen demonstration subsea site one and a half miles off Gills Harbour.  
12/6/2022
GILLS HARBOUR Ltd ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
GILLS HARBOUR Ltd - ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING at JOHN O'GROATS VILLAGE HALL, MONDAY JUNE 13th @ 7.30 PM.   GILLS HARBOUR IS THE ONLY OFFICIALLY-RECOGNISED 'ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AREA' IN NE CAITHNESS.  
22/3/2021
Latest Boats At Gills Harbour For Work At MeygenThumbnail for article : Latest Boats At Gills Harbour For Work At Meygen
£10 million 'Isle of Jura' temporarily based at Gills Harbour in Far North of Scotland for her crew's debut tasks in the tidal-stream electricity field at the MeyGen sub-sea site, one mile off the little Caithness's port entrance channel.   One of the UK's most modern marine renewables service vessels made her debut calls at community-owned Gills Harbour, near John O'Groats, over the 2021 Spring Equinoctial weekend.  
23/2/2021
Busy Gills HarbourThumbnail for article : Busy Gills Harbour
Its been a busy few days at local community-owned Gills Harbour .....  sometimes in suberb sunny weather as here ...  
26/11/2020
Energy Developments Continue at Gills Harbour and the Pentland FirthThumbnail for article : Energy Developments Continue at Gills Harbour and the Pentland Firth
The company behind the world-leading tidal-stream prototype power plant in the Pentland Firth's Inner Sound is set to start manufacturing a new-style turbine that is hopes will reduce the project's generating costs.   Simec Atlantis Energy (SAE) and a privately-owned specialist engineering firm from Spain's Bay of Biscay coastline have jointly been conducting 'research and development' (R& D) on the project for almost a year and are now ready to give it the go-ahead.  
8/10/2020
New Generation of office-bearers set to step up at Gills Harbour LtdThumbnail for article : New Generation of office-bearers set to step up at Gills Harbour Ltd
A new generation of younger local folk look set to take over the reins of running Gills Harbour Ltd, the local company that owns and operates the busy little port on the shores of the Pentland Firth's Inner Sound that holds its AGM this Saturday (10.10.20) morning at 10:00 am.   The influx of younger blood comes after two key directors of the group that had run 'Canisbay's Peoples Port' both announced their retirement from office, whilst another Gills Harbour Ltd (GHL) office-bearer has declined to seek re-election.  
MV Alfred And MV Pentalina Together At GillsThumbnail for article : MV Alfred And MV Pentalina Together At Gills
An 'old friend' returns to Gills Bay after an absence of manymonths.   The 2,400 tonne 70 m.  
16/8/2020
Normand Cutter, The Norwegian-owned Offshore Construction Vessel at GillsThumbnail for article : Normand Cutter, The Norwegian-owned Offshore Construction Vessel at Gills
Here is the Normand Cutter, the Norwegian-owned offshore construction vessel that has been the base for works on Simec Atlantis Energy's (SAE's) MeyGen site in the Pentland Firth's Inner Sound, off Gills Bay during the current neap-tide sequence, that has lasted most of the week commencing 11.08.20.   Picture by retired C of S Kirk Minister the Rev Lyall Rennie, who lives at Lower Warse, Canisbay, on the shores of Gills Bay..  
New Ferry For Pentland Ferries Arrives SafelyThumbnail for article : New Ferry For Pentland Ferries Arrives Safely
Scotland's most modern + environmentally-friendly, fuel-efficient ROPAX ferry ship rge MV Alfred, arrived AM today (Wed 09.10.19 at St Margarets Hope.   The boat went round to Kirkwall immediately at the end of 9,000+ miles voyage from the Strategic Marine yard near Ho Chi Minh city (ex.  
20/3/2019
Gills Harbour Ltd Awards Contract To Local FirmThumbnail for article : Gills Harbour Ltd Awards Contract To Local Firm
Gills Harbour Ltd, the community-owned body that owns & operates the busy little port on Caithness's North Coast, has awarded a remedial contract to a Wick-based company.   The deal, won in a competitive tender, has gone to builders/civil engineers Messrs GMR Henderson Ltd, of Martha Terrace in Wick.