Tidal Transit expands fleet to meet demand for offshore wind O&M

The company’s existing fleet of purpose-built crew transfer vessels have worked consistently since 2011 on windfarms around the UK and overseas.

The new additions to its fleet, 19-m Southboats designs, come from the used market, having previously been owned by international shipping company Vroon, and have undergone full refurbishment at Grimsby Shipyard Services.

Changes have been made to increase speed, fuel efficiency and transfer performance. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, social distancing measures have been introduced by installing additional crew and passenger separators to allow continued operations for Tidal Transit’s windfarm clients.

“We are very proud of the utilisation and reliability records of our current Mercurio-built CTVs,” Tidal Transit commercial director Leo Hambro said.

“The fleet has racked up some incredible statistics since new, constantly running at over 88% utilisation since new with 98.7% availability to charterers during that time. This is the result of the success of our inhouse preventative and reactive maintenance team, as well as the high performance and durability of the vessels’ hullform.

“We saw the Man-powered Southboats as particularly attractive additions to the fleet, due to shared common parts, and their design, which will allow us to diversify and serve projects requiring shallower drafts. We believe people will be very surprised to see what we will achieve with these proven Southboats hullforms with the modifications that we have already, and will continue, to make.”

The vessels have been named after the youngest daughters of its two directors. Ava Sofie is named after Adam Wright’s daughter, was launched on 22 April 2020, and Honor Mhari, is named after Leo Hambro’s daughter, and was launched on 06 May. They bring the number of CTVs in Tidal Transit’s fleet to six. The two new 19-m vessels are now available for charter.

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