Osprey’s Barges Ready to Meet Client Needs

Osprey has the largest fleet of UK-registered barges, ranging from 92m to 50m in length and up to 27m wide. Some of their barges have the capacity to load almost 10,000t of cargo. The fleet is ready year-round for nearshore construction, deep-sea projects, cable deliveries, platforms and staging, component delivery, innovative installation projects and standard load-ins and loadouts of all kinds. That’s a significant scope, which means that they are constantly meeting myriad, diverse needs.

Recently, Osprey was asked to provide two barges at short notice for one of their clients – this involved performing extensive modifications to both vessels. With more than 25 years’ marine experience, this isn’t a challenge. In less than two weeks they had tendered, been awarded, and started work on the outfitting for two barges, mobilising both on time, ready for work, as expected. Modifications involved heavy steelwork with a lot of background engineering, which of course goes through approval to their classification society, and they work closely with them to ensure all standards and regulations are adhered to.

Osprey Bouwer – one of the two new barges commissioned by Osprey in March 2020

At the same time, they were bringing the OSPREY CARRIER and OSPREY TRADER back into condition – two barges that had been servicing clients’ needs in Nador, Morocco on a long-term project for several years. There, they had been deployed to support the ongoing work on this deep-water port. Both barges have been playing a critical role in construction, which meant they needed pulling into dry dock for inspection and remedial repairs. The process for this involves doing an extensive off-hire survey, generating a drydock specification based on this, and then going out to drydocks for tender.

Osprey choose which drydocks they work with carefully, based on quality, as they strive to keep their fleet in top condition both structurally and aesthetically as this is what their clients demand – again, working closely with their classification society to ensure they do things properly every time.

They like to keep things transparent at Osprey and encourage inspections from clients during these docking periods to show them first-hand what work is being carried out, and to give confidence that their barges are truly fit for purpose.

Even though they have the largest fleet in the UK, they are constantly monitoring the market and purchase their new barges to meet the needs of their customers and deliver purpose-built barges.

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