Image courtesy of Seaway Heavy Lifting
The beginning of April saw the start of offshore construction in the Outer Moray Firth.
Our construction vessels moved in to position and began work which culminated in the milestone installation of the first cluster of four piles on the evening of Sunday 2 April.
The offshore construction element of the Beatrice project falls under the remit of Seaway Heavy Lifting, who have mobilised their Stanislav Yudin vessel for the piling phase of the works.
These initial piles, manufactured by Fife based BiFab at their Arnish (Isle of Lewis) facility, will provide the foundations for the two Offshore Transformer Modules which will sit within the wind farm boundary.
To ensure accurate placement of the piles, a Pile Installation Frame (PIF) was manufactured which weighs in at around 700 tonnes. The PIF was deployed and, once level on the seabed, each of the piles was then placed into position and hammered to the correct depth.
The Stanislav Yudin and her support vessels will repeat the process at each of the 84 turbine locations which is expected, weather permitting, to be complete around November.
Image shows the Stanislav Yudin with the PIF onboard and the piling hammer.
