Jumbo Relies on Fairweather to Deliver Project

Jumbo Shipping recently completed transport and handling of hundreds of offshore wind turbine foundation components for Ørstead’s Hornsea Two offshore wind farm.

Supporting DEME Offshore, Jumbo’s K-3000-class heavy-lift vessel Fairmaster transported 141 monopiles, or MPs, and 131 transition pieces, or TPs, from Rostock, Germany, and Aalborg, Denmark, to Eemshaven, the Netherlands. For Jumbo, part of the Jumbo – SAL – Alliance, it was the largest number of MPs and TPs ever shipped under a single contract – and also with a single heavy-lift vessel.

The 153-meter Fairmaster provided two 1,500-tone cranes and a fexible deck layout that met the project’s transport schedules, Jumbo said. The vessel offered three loading configurations without intermediate standby periods or reconfiguration: five MPs loaded on deck and in the hold, six TPs and three MPs, or three TPS and four MPs.

“This engineered flexible solution made it an extremely efficient vessel for the project and is one of the things we’re most proud of – it helped us conclude the project scope within just 37 voyages in a period of just under 12 months,” said Maarten De Gruyter, Jumbo’s project manager.


Flexible and Consistent

The Fairmaster’s multiple loading configurations also gave Jumbo flexibility to adjust to the client’s planning, which was linked to the delivery sequence from fabrication yards. “We had close cooperation with DEME Offshore … this meant we could carry more equipment within less time,” De Gruyter said.

“We converted the Fairmaster into a kind of ‘Swiss Army knife’ that provided an unrivalled heavy lift vessel intake of large diameter monopiles and transition pieces, but still with the flexibility required for the various lengths and diameters that were to be transported,” said Boudewijn van der Garden, Jumbo’s commercial manager.

That flexibility becomes even more impressive when considering the dimensions of the transported components. The MPs were 8.5 to 9.5 meters and weighed up to 1,285 tonnes. Though the job was repetitive in nature, Jumbo maintained focus on each component as a heavy-lift move, with an emphasis on safety, including bringing an external safety consultant on board.

Special MP saddles and TP grillages were designed and engineered to ensure vessel efficiency. Inlays in the saddles accommodated the MPs’ different diameters.

“The clearances were tight: sometimes 50 centimeters or less between components,” De Gruyter said. “We also installed project-specific lifting lugs on the deck hatches to seep up loading and unloading operations.”


Biofuel Initiative

As construction of the Hornsea Two offshore wind farm requires reducing the environmental footprint, Jumbo was required to include a Green Initiative into its project execution. Jumbo chose to sail with biofuel oil from sustainable marine biofuel provider GoodFuels.

According to GoodFuels, the biofuel delivers 80 percent to 90 percent CO2 reduction compared to fossil equivalents, and no sulfur oxide emissions.