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Beatrice Mini Armada Now Gathered Off South East Caithness Coast

27th March 2017

Photograph of Beatrice Mini Armada Now Gathered Off South East Caithness Coast

A mini armada of specialist ships assembled Sunday 26th March.2017 as offshore work gets under way in earnest at the Beatrice wind farm site, off SE Caithness.

Flagship of the five-strong multi-million fleet is the massive 24,822 tonne 'large loads lifting vessel 'Stanislav Yudin, registered in Cyprus.

This mighty 182 metres long vessel has on-board cranes capable of hoisting or lowering loads of 2,500 tonnes weight to or from the seabed.

She is operated by Seaway Heavy Lifting, of Rotterdam, Netherlands, a company in which well-known multi-national offshore engineering contractors Subsea 7 will soon have a controlling stake, according to recent European stock-exchange announcements.

Also there is the powerful 3,790 tonne anchor-handing tug/supply vessel Siem Ruby, which is 91 metres long . She is a sister-ship of several Siem company ships that have become well-known in East Caithness, particularly around Sinclair's Bay as the vessels delivering completed 'flow-line bundles' plus 'tow-heads' by mid-water tow to various fields from the offshore oil & gas fabrication yard at Wester, near Keiss. Siem Ruby has been on location in the Inner Moray Firth for several weeks, searching for (and removing?) big boulders littering the floor of the sea off SE Caithness.

As a tug, Siem Ruby has an astonishing 'bollard pull' towage capacity of 310 tonnes

Slightly larger at 4,869 tonne and 93 metres length is Siem N. Sea, another anchor-handling ship, designed for heavy, deep-water offshore oil and gas field construction tasks, such as on the Atlantic Frontier fields, off the West of Shetland.

Completing the Beatrice fleet is the 1,262 tonne tug Bremen Fighter, German-owned but registered in the Caribbean islands of Antigua & Barbuda.

Work is now also underway at Wick harbour to transform several buildings into a base. The old slipway will be removed to make way for berthing of a range of boats to service the construction work to be carried out over the next two years. The former Stevens building, Fountain Forestry building and one which recently had extensive work done by Historic Scotland to renew the roof and timbers to ensure it was not lost.

The project is probably the largest to be carried out in the north since the construction of Dounreay. With up to 90 permanent jobs and rising to 300 as the construction of the turbines out at sea gains pace..

PHOTO

Stanislav Yudin

Photographer - Kees Torn - wikimedia.org