OWA publishes new recommended boat landing geometry design

A new publicly available design of recommended boat landing geometry has been released for use by offshore wind developers and Crew Transfer Vessel (CTV) owners and operators. The design offers a consistent fender geometry for use on CTVs across different wind farms, reducing the time and cost of changing fenders.

It was developed by the Offshore Wind Accelerator (OWA), a collaborative research, development and deployment programme between the Carbon Trust and nine offshore wind developers.

The new design follows analysis of the interaction and impact of CTVs on boat landings during push-on transfers to offshore structures and other vessels, and incorporates better-defined CTV loads, as well as industry feedback and recommendations. It also adheres to the G+’s health and safety guidelines.

Currently there is wide inconsistency in boat landing geometry between different wind farms, even those located in close proximity to each other. This inconsistency results in CTVs either not having the correct fender configuration to safely undertake crew transfer operations, or having to switch fender configurations when operating between wind farms, which increases health and safety risk.

G+ 2018 incident data reported 278 incidents and hazards involving vessels, one-third of which were related to turbine access, and in 2016 the International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) identified design impact forces for the boat landing as a critical area where data was lacking.

This OWA project aimed to build on both pieces of research and recommend a standardised boat landing design that would address the health and safety implications of differing boat landing designs and incorporate a more detailed analysis of impact forces.

Sam Strivens, manager of the OWA vessel and access systems workstream, commented:

"While we think the recommended design will provide benefit to the industry-at-large, we expect this will have the greatest impact in emerging offshore wind markets, where new projects can implement the design from the outset, without need for retrofit."

The design was developed with support from Atkins Ltd, a design, engineering and project management consultancy.