
OOS Walcheren Keel Laying at China Merchants Heavy Industries (Jiangsu)
The keel lay is a significant milestone because it marks the beginning of forming the vessel. Photographs – OOS
Date 7 December 2018
Almost one year after the keel laying of the SSCV OOS Serooskerke on 19 December 2017 OOS International announced the keel laying of the sister vessel OOS Walcheren had taken place At the China Merchants Heavy Industries Yard in Jiangsu, China. The OOS Walcheren is a DP-3 classed semi-submersible heavy lift crane accommodation vessel.
The vessel is the third OOS vessel to be built using the asymmetric brace-less semi-submersible design developed by Leenaars BV in the Netherlands.
OOS International expect that the progress of the construction will speed up rapidly now, because of the exceptional crane facilities available at the dry dock. There are five 60mt lattice boom cranes and one 900mt gantry crane serving the dry dock.
The OOS Walcheren is a DP-3 classed semi-submersible heavy lift crane accommodation vessel. She has been designed, equipped and built to high standards such as UK-HSE compliance, ABS Enhanced-propulsion DP class 3 notation, Green passport and ABS Integrated Software Quality Management (ISQM) notation.
The first vessel of this design is the smaller OOS Gretha, 33,600 GRT, completed in 2012 and currently working in Brazil. The two identical twins, OOS Serooskerke and OOS Walcheren are 37,800 GRT with a variable load of 6,200t.
The OOS Walcheren has a total of 212 sub blocks which will be fully erected in the dry dock. After the erection is complete, the OOS Walcheren will boast an overall size of 138m in length and 81m in breadth. She will be staying in the dry dock for 8 months, where she will be carefully outfitted and assembled before undocking at the end of July 2019, about 2 months before her sister is due to be handed over to OOS in Q3 2019.
The 2 vessels have a lift capacity of 4,400t heavy, using the 2 Huisman offshore mast cranes, and are designed to perform topside installation, decommissioning, offshore accommodation in the O&G sector and wind turbine installation in the renewables sector. They are also able to provide accommodation for 750 POB meeting ABS habitability requirements.
The progress of the OOS Serooskerke construction can be seen on the OOS Facebook time lapse video on this link released 3 weeks ago.
Source HLN & OOS International