The distance to the offshore windfarm sites as well as the size of installation and support vessels are constantly increasing. Today you can find vessels up to 100m, all vessels being perfectly suited for its tailored task. This paper will present Crew Transfer boats, ranging from 7m to 27m, purpose built for its operation and designed for efficient crew transfer, from shore or from hotel ships to windfarm structures, platforms or special operation vessels. The paper will focus on vessels using active drive systems as sterndrives or pod drives, showing how they work safely and efficiently in crew transit and crew transfer operations. With contra rotating stern drives and contra rotating pod drives the active maneuvering in high seas and the high bollard push against any boarding structure will ensure that the downtime due to bad weather is minimized and the safety for the crew and technicians are kept on a high level. The CR technology will ensure that vessels are keeping their grip in the water and at the same time showing up to 35% lower fuel consumption. Monohull and catamaran vessels will be presented together with selected propulsion systems and experience from real operation in different duties will be shown. The paper will give a good insight in the performance and the flexibility of the stern drive and pod drive propulsion system in different applications, with over 10 years of experience in offshore wind environment. It will also show the future of an electro mobility concept for parallel hybrids in this kind of environment.
展开▼