Siemens SOV ‘WINDEA La Cour’ receives Offshore Support Journal Award 2017

And the winner is WINDEA La Cour. At the Annual Offshore Support Journal (OSJ) Conference in London Wednesday night the blue Siemens Service Operation Vessel (SOV) was recognized for its unique design concept. According to the jury, the specialized vessel, that started its service campaign at the 600MW Gemini offshore wind power plant in the Netherlands in September 2016, represents "a significant contribution to the development of the offshore renewables market during 2016". The ship is operated by Bernhard Schulte and was delivered in 2016 to be chartered out to Siemens Wind Power.

"It is a great honor to be part of this OSJ-Award", said René Cornelis Wigmans, Head of Maritime and Aviation Solutions at Siemens Wind Power. "The award recognizes our approach as a service provider to deploy purpose-built SOVs as a major step in providing cost efficient service logistics for on-site maintenance of offshore wind projects over their full lifecycle in order to ensure the highest availability."

The 88meter vessel works as a platform for offshore wind turbine operations and maintenance support including technician accommodation and transport. Thanks to a specialized gangway it provides exceptional levels of safe and reliable access to offshore wind turbines. On board a warehouse provides spare parts. Characteristic design feature of the vessel are the so called X-BOW and its X-STERN hull. Both features lead to increased comfort for the technicians aboard, due to reduced movements, vibrations and noise. WINDEA La Cour offers accommodation for 60 people in single cabins, of which 40 are dedicated to wind service technicians.