Jumbo Shipping has successfully transported 51 monopiles from EEW's manufacturing plant in Rostock, Germany, to Barrow-in-Furness in the UK. The monopiles’ final destination was DONG Energy's Walney Offshore Windfarm 2.

When the contract was awarded, the first shipment was only seven weeks away, during which time Jumbo engineered all shipments and designed and manufactured saddles for the monopiles. Within this short period of time all was ready and approved by the Marine Warranty Surveyor.

More monopiles in fewer voyages

Jumbo's HLV Fairpartner made six consecutive voyages carrying eight monopiles at a time: two in the hold and six on deck. The largest monopile weighed 806 metric tons and measured 68 meters in length and 6.5 meters in diameter.

In order to improve the delivery schedule, DONG Energy asked Jumbo to employ HLV Jumbo Vision to transport the last three monopiles. The transport engineering plus design and fabrication of the stoppers for the sea fasting of the monopiles was done within only two weeks’ time.

At Barrow-in-Furness, the discharging of the monopiles was done round the clock in order to make the port stay as short as possible. Jumbo’s shallow draft vessel entered the port during high water. After entering the dock gate had to be closed and no marine traffic was possible. Each discharge operation of eight monopiles was completed within 36 hours.

Best partner for offshore wind projects

By transporting as much as eight monopiles per voyage, Jumbo was able to complete the project in a substantially small number of voyages and thus reduced the project’s environmental impact.

The project shows that Jumbo is very well equipped for transporting monopiles to Offshore Windfarms. In previous projects Jumbo proved to be highly capable of installing transition pieces offshore. These two services, transportation and Offshore installation, complement each other well, which makes Jumbo the ideal subcontractor for Offshore Wind projects.

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