The global offshore wind industry has undergone a huge expansion programme in recent years and the market for supporting and maintaining offshore wind turbines is highly competitive among turbine crew transfer operators. However, the current fleet of windfarm support vessels has been developed to serve near shore windfarms and the limited ability of these vessels to operate in rough weather often results in windfarms being unreachable. With windfarms being built further offshore in more exposed locations, increased seakeeping ability of support vessels is of paramount importance. This paper describes the work undertaken by BMT Nigel Gee in the development and optimisation of an innovative 'extreme semi-SWATH' (XSS) hullform designed to meet the exacting needs of the offshore wind industry. The paper discusses the challenges encountered, as well as the potential benefit of the vessel to the offshore wind industry.
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