At the end of May 2015 DSB was approached by a large construction company who have been working in the Moray Firth. They needed a crew vessel to be used to support their met mast operation. 24m LOA ‘Sea Fox’ catamaran crewboat, operated by Enviroserve, who had just finished her contract, was moved straight away to continue her charter at Inch Cape. Happy with her work done on the first contract, clients agreed ‘Sea Fox’s charter extension on this new job. ‘
Working closely with the winning JV from the inception of the project, DSB Offshore liaised with owners offering prices for all vessels types from jack-up barges, tugs and barge combinations to crew boats.
This type of project is DSB’s sweet spot; helping major international clients to find the most suitable floating plant for a long running and complex EPIC project.
Building the longest three tower cable-stayed bridge in the world, clients needed to work closely with us as their brokers to work within the budgetary constraints of the project, mostly under tight time constraints.
DSB sold the following to the JV for use on the project: Voith tug, ASD tug, flattop barge and winch spreads. DSB also Chartered a flattop barge, multicat and various tugs for towage during the bridge tower construction phase. DSB arranged the tow of bridge sections from Southern Europe to Scotland and the shipment of steel from the Far East for key bridge elements.
After brokering a charter deal for a mono-hull jack-up with 250t payload and 32m legs for piling operations, DSB Offshore fixed the tug ‘MTS Indus’ for tow of the jack-up from Holland to Scotland.
The jack-up was used for the construction of the world’s largest and most powerful offshore wind turbine at the time.
The 7 megawatt, £70m demonstrator turbine formed the test bed for Samsung Heavy Industries in the race for the most efficient offshore renewable technology.
In support of the project, at short notice, DSB fixed a non-propelled splitbarge for work in the Energy Park in Fife, Scotland. Within the adjoining Methil docks there is an opportunity to develop an Operations and Maintenance facility to service the three nearby wind farms that will total 4GW once developed.
The dumb splitbarge was involved with supporting dredging work in the renewable energy park. DSB also arranged the towage of this splitbarge from North West Europe for the project.“
Vessels: Barges capable of entering Cardiff Port
In November 2008 DSB Offshore came up with the innovative solution of utilising modular barges during the construction phase for the £13.3M olympic standard Canoe Slalom Centre and White Water Rafting Centre at Cardiff International Sports Village.
This included arranging for the delivery of the modular barges to site using flatbed lorries by road.
The design is by the French company, HydroStadium, who have designed the courses for the Sydney, Athens and now the Beijing Olympics, with the construction carried out by Dean & Dyball Civil Engineering (Wales). Our involvement in the project ran until spring 2009.
The Seafox 1 is a construction & accommodation Jackup with dimensions 40 x 40m and 4 x 70m legs. She has a Huisman pedestal crane capable of hoisting 300 metric tons and during the job provided accommodation for approximately 100 construction crew The Matador III is a seagoing floating sheerleg with 1750 ton lifting capacity. She has a length of 70m and a beam of 32m.
The decision to use a Sheerleg and Construction Jackup barge together as opposed to a single large installation vessel proved to be successful combination. In 2013 the Conwy platform will be tied back to the existing BHP Biliton operated Douglas platform which itself will undergo modifications to allow the reception and processing of fluids from Conwy.