Round the world voyage for Rem Gambler

Rem Offshore’s anchor handler Rem Gambler has had an especially busy 12 months. It started 2011 on the spot market in the North Sea, undertaking a range of standard rig moves and pre-setting work. On projects such as these, the vessel’s huge capacity for chain, fibre and wire came in particularly handy, as did the ship’s massive bollard pull, a feature that the company notes has been particularly appreciated by its clients.

From the end of June until the end of November the vessel was contracted by Saipem, which needed a large, powerful anchor handler to perform ploughing work offshore Sakhalin, Russia. After a few weeks of hectic mobilisation in Stavanger, the vessel headed south and, later, West through the English Channel, the Bay of Biscay, down the coast of Portugal and Spain, through the Mediterranean Sea, Suez Canal, Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to Singapore before proceeding via Pusan in South Korea, the South China Sea and the Sea of Japan, before reaching Kholms on the south side of the island of Sakhalin. Here Rem Gambler was duly cleared to work in Russian waters.

Rem Gambler has a 250-tonne A-frame which was utilised for this project. The work was scheduled to take 60 days, but Rem Gambler finished the job in 30 days. The job with Saipem required the vessel to plough approximately 75km of trench for a variety of pipes and cables.

On her way back from Sakhalin, the vessel had a ‘pit stop’ in Singapore to pick up Songa Eclipse (a semi-submersible rig) that was about to start a contract for Total in Angola. Rem Gambler undertook the tow alone, instead of the two vessels that Songa Offshore originally thought it required. OSJ