Secret weapon’: dedicated on site steel construction and machining facility.
The skyline of the Amsterdam harbours has been visibly altered in the neighbourhood of Shipdock, Amsterdam’s premier ship repair and conversion yard. The company has recently secured four major contracts for the upgrading and maintenance of the jack-up vessels GMS Endurance, GMS Endeavour, Seajack Leviathan and Seajack Zaratan. These vessels, equipped with elevating legs of over 100m in height, will be keeping the shipyard busy throughout the summer months.
Shipdock has managed to considerably increase its activities in the offshore market since the very first jack-up barge, the Danish-based A2SEA Sea Jack, came into the yard approximately two years ago. The main task then carried out at Shipdock was to lengthen the legs in order to keep the lower cable sheeves out of the mud in elevating mode.
Until some months ago, Shipdock expected to be working on one or two jack-ups per year. Because of the rapidly growing wind-park construction activities in the nearby North Sea waters, the total for this year is already standing at four of these very specialised vessels!
The most important jobs that the new contracts require are:
• manufacture and installation of new crane pedestals
• installation of heavier cranes
• reinforcement of supporting deck structures
• installation of helidecks
• manufacture and installation of winch foundations
• lengthening of legs (on the GMS Endeavour)
• general project mobilisation work
Senior project manager at Shipdock, Tjeerd Schulting, is justifiably proud that Shipdock has been chosen for these important new contracts: “Don’t think that it’s all so easy – over the years we have worked hard to build up a solid reputation for being extremely well-equipped for projects like this. Other important factors are that we offer a guarantee of work to all required safety standards; for North Sea operations we are, geographically, in a very attractive location and Shipdock has the right-sized docks and repair berths equipped with heavy duty cranes; and that is all topped-off by our world-class package of high quality workmanship, competitive pricing, on-time delivery and full service on site.”
Tjeerd goes on to include a couple of Shipdock’s ‘secret weapons’: “Our sister company, Niron Staal, is located within Shipdock’s premises and provides dedicated steel construction and heavy machining facilities to support Shipdock, where necessary, on all projects. Finally, the broad diversity of tasks on the jack-up vessels illustrates the competence and flexibility of Shipdock’s dedicated staff. When it comes to repair and conversion, the decisive factor is always the experience and enthusiasm of the people who are actually doing the job.”