Germany’s first wind farm installation vessel in service
“Victoria Mathias” will start its work with the erection of the wind farm “Nordsee Ost”
The special purpose vessel “Victoria Mathias” is now starting its offshore work with the erection of the wind farm “Nordsee Ost” around 30 kilometres north of the island of Helgoland from its base port Bremerhaven. A total of 48 Repower 6.15 MW turbines covering an area of 36 km² are to be installed there at water depths of 22-26m.
The EUR 100 million “Victoria Mathias” as well as its sister ship “Friedrich Ernestine”, have a number of outstanding characteristics. The single-vessel concept offers important advantages, such as shorter waiting times and eliminating the shuttle service between base port and installation platform.
With a length of 100m and a width of 40m, the installation vessel is able to transport and install up to four offshore wind turbines of the largest available offshore wind turbines including foundations. Featuring satellite control, these ships can be fixed with centimetre-precision for construction work at sea and operate in water depths of more than 40m. Although the vessel was built in South Korea, according to RWE, Europe accounts for around 60 percent of created value. The German supply sector alone contributed around 40 percent to the value creation of the “Victoria Mathias”.
