Seaway Heavy Lifting vessel Stanislav Yudin has installed more than 10% of the foundation piles for SSE’s 588MW Beatrice offshore wind farm off the Scottish coast.
Stanislav Yudin is being assisted by two anchor handling tugs, the Bremen Fighter and the Smit Sentosa.
The tugs assist in the deployment of Stanislav Yudin’s eight-point anchor system which, once in place, secures the vessel in readiness for pile installation.
Each of the anchors is marked with anchor buoys and the lines are tensioned enabling Stanislav Yudin to be held firmly in place.
To ensure that each of the four piles are installed correctly, a specially designed pile installation frame (PIF) is lowered to the seabed.
The 700-tonne PIF has hydraulic feet allowing it to sit level on the seabed.
The pile foundations are delivered on barges to Stanislav Yudin, which then lifts each pile and lowers them into the PIF ahead of installation into the seabed by way of percussive piling.
The job will smooth the path to full turbine jacket installation at the project site later this year.
Once commissioned in 2019, Beatrice will feature 84 Siemens 7MW wind turbines.
Image: Stanislav Yudin on site at Beatrice (Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Limited)
