Marine and Towage Services Group has provided support to shipbuilder Damen during sea trials of Maersk Connector, its latest offshore cabling vessel.
Testing took place over a two-week period. It involved MTS Vigilant, a Damen Shoalbuster, carrying out anchor handling work to test the capabilities of the new vessel’s advanced mooring systems before the handover to Maersk Supply Service and charterer DeepOcean.
Maersk Connector is fitted with dynamic positioning to address the challenge of working far from shore and has multi-point mooring systems using several anchors to allow increased manoeuvrability closer to shore.
During the sea trials, MTS was engaged to provide anchor-handling support as Damen tested and calibrated this complex anchor system, running and positioning anchors as required.
Maersk Connector already has a number of work commitments including array cable installation on Bligh Bank wind farm, export cable installation on Walney Extension wind farm and bundled HVDC cable installation on the NEMO interconnector project between Belgium and the UK.
Image: Maersk Connector and MTS Vigilant during the trials (MTS)
