The Norwegian Vard Brattvaag shipyard has officially now delivered and handed-over the newbuild cable-laying vessel “Calypso” to the Dutch family-owned marine contractor Van Oord.
The hull of the vessel was built at Vard Tulcea in Romania, but with the final construction phase took place at the Vard Brattvaag shipyard in Norway, where the cable-related equipment also was installed.
This next generation custom-built cable-laying vessel is developed with the latest sustainable technologies in order to reduce the carbon footprint where besides being run on biofuel, this hybrid vessel has future fuel ready engines with built-in flexibility to be powered with e-fuels.
The vessel has a large battery installation, a shore supply connection and a s state-of-the-art energy management system. This sustainable set-up will result in higher energy efficiency reducing CO2, NOx and SOx emissions.
The cable-laying vessel is not only fitted with a cable carousel on deck but also with a second, below-deck cable carousel, with a total cable-carrying capacity of 8,000 tonnes which makes her suitable for efficiently laying two cables simultaneously.
The “Calypso” will mainly be deployed to install inter-array grid and export cables for offshore wind projects, including high-voltage direct current cables and Van Oord’s highly innovative cable trenchers can also be operated from the vessel the shipyard mentions.
The cable laying vessel of VARD 9 02 design is developed by Vard Design in Ålesund, Norway and the vessel measures 131 metres in length and 28 metres across the beam.
