Vard has announced that it has secured contracts for the design and construction of three Service Operation Vessels (SOVs) for North Star Renewables in Scotland. The hybrid trio will operate on the Dogger Bank Wind Farm in the North Sea.The SOVs were developed by Vard in close cooperation with North Star, which has secured 10-year charter contracts for the trio from Dogger Bank Wind Farm. The charters include options for three one-year extensions. Dogger Bank is currently under construction by joint-venture partners SSE Renewables, Equinor and Eni.
One of the SOV’s will be of the Vard 4 19 design and the other two of its Vard 4 12 design. The Vard 4 19 design has been developed to handle planned maintenance on the Dogger Bank A and B wind arrays. The 85-metre vessel has a beam of 19 metres and will be able to accommodate 78 crew members in single cabins. Developed to perform corrective maintenance on Dogger Bank, the other Vard 4 12 pair will be 78 metres in length with a beam of 19 metres and accommodation for 60 persons in single cabins. The three SOVs are set for handover to North Star in 2023 and they will be built at Vard’s Vard Vung Tau shipyard in Vietnam.
