Huisman has been awarded a contract by Heerema for the delivery of Motion Compensated Pile Gripper for use in offshore wind farm construction.
This will be the third Motion Compensated Pile Gripper to be built by Huisman.
David Roodenburg, CEO of Huisman: “Huisman is very honoured to receive this order, for Heerema’s first pile gripper.
“This is a complex project, the execution of which will draw upon the knowledge and experience of both parties.
“We are looking forward to collaborating with Heerema to deliver this
innovative gripper.”
The equipment supports construction of offshore wind farms further from shore, where turbine installation is conducted from a floating vessel.
The Motion Compensation Pile Gripper enables this to take place protects the monopile from uncontrolled oscillation during lowering and piling and compensates for vessel motions in the horizontal plane.
This includes heave, roll, pitch and yaw as well as drift when the vessel is operating on DP.
The design and construction of the gripper will be a combined effort carried out at Huisman’s locations in the Czech Republic and in the Netherlands.
When completed, the gripper will be installed, via rails on the side of the vessel, to Heerema’s DSCV Thialf.
The gripper will move up and down on the side of the vessel by means of hydraulic jacking system.
The gripper is designed to handle monopiles up to 12.5 m in diameter, with a length of up to 115 m and a weight of 3200 mt.