Cable laying ships have been developing a quite different profile from that of traditional vessels fitted with large cable sheaves for guiding cable directly over the stem. Most have gone to stern-mounted sheaves or roller assemblies, and in the case of the latest design, for Boskalis-SMIT Engineering, a forward-mounted accommodation block and an aft working deck, the latter having a reel cable loading capacity of 5,000 tonnes.
Designed by Montrose-based OSD-IMT, the UK arm of Holland’s Offshore Ship Designers, the 99m cable layer will be built by South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries with design assistance from OSD’s office in Shanghai.
‘This project illustrates perfectly the strengths of the OSD group,’ said Neil Patterson, managing director of OSD-IMT. ‘We can bring strong offshore engineering experience in the UK to bear on the basic design, and work with our Shanghai office to develop the yard drawings.’
