Seahorse Carries Crushed Stone From Norway For Moray Firth Cables

4th November 2017

A massive, 20,000 tonne vessel, the Seahorse is carrying thousands of tonnes of crushed stone from Norway for covering newly-laid cables off Caithness's Coast.

The 163 metre long vessel's destination is given as Smith's Bank, the name of a once-prolific fishing ground in the Inner Moray Firth,, SE off Wick, where the Beatrice offshore oil-farm is now under construction.

The Dutch-owned 19,515 GRT, 20,958 DWT has sailed with her cargo from a super-quarry port at Slovag, Norway to be precisely dumped off the East coast of Caithness.

The ship has been widely used in the past for burying oil and gas pipelines at, or from, fields in the North Sea where the seafloor is either sandy, muddy or gravel-strewn.

Bill Mowat

Photo

Taken off Staxigoe 4 November 2017

Photographer - John Plowman