Robin Rigg – Marine Warranty Survey

CLIENT: E.on UK
TYPE: Offshore Wind Farm
LOCATION: Offshore Solway Firth
WATER DEPTH: 20m to drying
DATES: 2007 to 2010

LOC Scope of Work

Marine warranty surveying is usually a requirement of the developer’s ‘Construction All Risk’ insurance and experience has shown that it can significantly reduce the number of claims, which in turn reduces the insurance costs. LOC was appointed as the marine warranty surveyor to review the operational procedures and to inspect the principal offshore construction vessels to confirm their suitability for use on this project. LOC has worked closely with the developer, the insurance underwriters and the brokers to identify the key reviews and surveys for this project. These include attending on-site for the first performance of each key operation to provide the necessary assurance to developer and insurer. If performed well then the surveyor need not attend each time the operation is repeated, thus saving considerable costs.

LOC’s work includes the review of procedures and making recommendations on their implementation, attendance on-site and the issue of Certificates of Approval before each first key operation of pile, tower, nacelle and blade installation, transformer platform, scour protection and directional drilling operations for the export cables. LOC also carried out surveys of the principal offshore jack-ups, barges and their support craft and reported on their suitability.

Brief Project Details

The site developers are E.on UK Solway Offshore Limited and E.on UK Offshore Energy Resources Limited, both subsidiaries of E.on. The development involved the installation of a 180 MW wind farm comprised of 60 wind turbines located on a sub-tidal sand flat known as Robin Rigg in Scottish waters in the Solway Firth. Soil conditions, shallow water depth, high tidal flows and scour all provided additional construction challenges, which had to be properly engineered and carefully implemented.

A particularly wide selection of vessels was used on this site including jack-up crane barges, heavy lift vessels, a bottom stabilized crane vessel, a cable barge with a carousel for the cable laying and ploughing, dredger for rock dumping and the jack-up vessel, “MPI RESOLUTION”. Workington, Barrow and Belfast were used as mobilisation and transhipment ports.

Looking for a marine warranty survey? Get in touch with us at LOC.