DEME has launched their new subsea cable installation and trenching vessel ‘Living Stone’ at the LaNaval shipyard close to Bilbao, Spain. The vessel is equipped with two turntables below deck, each having a 5,000 tons cable capacity. Together the turntables can carry and transport more than 200 kilometres of cable that can be installed in a single trip.
Ample deck space of 3,500 m2 facilitates a cable handling system with cable handling tools for cable ends, connections and cable protection systems. Furthermore, the ‘Living Stone’ can be equipped with a third carrousel above deck with an additional load capacity of 2,000 tons and a 600 tons crane. The ‘Living Stone’ can accommodate a crew of up to 100 persons and will be deployed by DEME’s Dutch subsidiary Tideway. The vessel is scheduled to be delivered in the second quarter of 2017 and will head to its first project at the Merkur offshore wind farm in Germany, 45 kilometres north of Borkum in the North Sea, for the installation of inter array cables.
