Geo-data company Fugro has made an order for an Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV) from SEA-KIT, to be used for future North Sea operations.
The 18m XL Class USV has a 7-tonne payload capacity and is capable of towing spreads and larger sensors. The vessel can launch and recover a variety of remotely operated vehicles and payloads, has fully redundant station holding capability, Cat 0 operations for unrestricted use and a lithium UPS supply for ship systems.
The vessel will be built at SEA-KIT’s UK production facility on the Essex coast in England, and will feature the latest generation of the company’s remote helm USV control and surveillance platform, G-SAVI.
“This order is an exciting next step in the roll out of Fugro’s remote and autonomous strategy and the development of our global USV fleet,” said Ivar de Josselin de Jong, Director Remote Inspection at Fugro.
“The Blue Eclipse is the first 18m USV in an anticipated global series of long endurance and more capable USVs that will be deployed in the offshore energy sector with comparable ROV inspection performance to regular DP2 vessels.”
“Equipped with the Fugro Blue Amp electric eROV and being operated from one of our nine global remote operations centres (ROC), we will be able to support our clients in achieving safer and more efficient data collection operations, whilst contributing to our mutual carbon footprint reduction ambitions.”
Work will start on the hull of the USV in March, with delivery scheduled for early 2023.
