Wärtsilä has signed a contract for the design of a new type of diving support vessel (DSV) to be built for subsea contracting major Subsea 7.
The design, designated the VS 4725 DSV, has been developed by Wärtsilä Ship Design specifically for Subsea 7 and will be built at the Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) shipyard in Korea, with delivery scheduled for 2015.
The ship will measure 123m length overall, by 24m beam, by 10.5m depth and will have accommodation for 110 personnel.
Subsea 7 intends to deploy the vessel in the North Sea year-round.
The design is the result of co-operation between Subsea 7, HHI, Drass Energy, the diving equipment supplier, and Wärtsilä.
It will feature the latest in integrated diving systems and have a novel 3-split engine and propulsion configuration to enable the highest level of operational flexibility.
Under this configuration, the systems relating to the generator sets, propulsion machinery, thrusters, electrical controls and all related auxiliary equipment, are divided into three sections. In addition to the excellent redundancy, this is expected to ensure a high ERN (environmental regularity number) score, while limiting the failure risk.
In a worst case failure scenario, most of the generator sets and thrusters will remain operational, Wärtsilä claims.