Barge Master T-700 to Provide Motion Compensated Drilling Platform

Recently an Offshore Diving Support / Construction Vessel was in Rotterdam in preparation for a contract off the coast of the US Virgin Island of St Croix. Here the vessel will used for the installation of a buoy which will be linked by pipe to the Lime Tree Bay Refinery which has been closed since 2012. A deal with BP in Q4 2018 means that the refinery should be back in production this year.
The buoy will require anchor piles which will be drilled from the vessel by LDD who will be installing seven anchor piles, securing the CALM Buoy in water depths up to 270m and with a seabed slope of 20 degrees.
The drilling equipment was installed on the vessel while in Rotterdam, after a unique piece of equipment had been installed to provide the LDD rig with a stable platform from which to drill.
This is the Barge Master BM-T700 which will provide a motion compensated platform able to increase the workability of the drilling equipment from <20% with a significant wave height of 0.75m to >90% with a significant wave height of up to 2.5m, depending on the conditions.
The BM-T700 consists of 3 container sized units housing the hydraulically operated motion compensation equipment for the platform. Compensation is provided for movement in 3 of the 6 degrees of motion, namely roll, pitch and heave. The remaining 3, surge sway and the yaw experienced by a vessel at sea can be minimized by the vessel’s DP system or anchoring. Rolling is a rotation around a longitudinal axis, pitching is a rotation around the transverse axis and heave is the linear motion along the vertical Z-axis. Swaying is the motion along the transverse Y-axis, surging is the motion along the longitudinal X-axis. and yawing is a rotation around the vertical axis.
The platform is able to provide a steady working base for any equipment weighing up to a total of 700t.

Roll and Pitch indicated by the circular motion on the 2 axis at 90 degress to each other, and Heave indicated by the vertical arrow 

The title feature photograph shows the BM-T700 installation on board before the drilling equipment had been installed.