Lee Clarke News

In an industry facing significant skill shortages many organizations are ready to take a fresh approach to recruiting and retaining women in the shipping workplace. According to Lee Clarke, Regional Director – Northern Hemisphere at Dynama, the first place to start is establishing an accurate gender profile of your organization using workforce management technology.Of the estimated 1.25 million seafarers in the world, fewer than 2% of them are thought to be women. For example, in the UK the maritime minister Nusrat Ghani MP – who herself is only the second woman to hold the UK Department for Transport portfolio for the country’s maritime sector – has praised the establishment of the ‘Women in Maritime Taskforce’.Set up by Maritime UK…

The Planning Inspectorate accepted Forewind’s development consent order application for the first stage of offshore wind energy development on the Dogger Bank Zone. The application for Dogger Bank Creyke Beck, comprising two offshore wind farms with a total installed capacity of up to 2.4 gigawatts (GW), was submitted in August after more than three years of surveys and research work, reporting and stakeholder engagement activity. The Planning Inspectorate will now begin a pre-examination phase that will be followed by a formal examination process, together these should take around 10 months.

Offshore wind developer Forewind’s second of two planned meteorological masts was erected at Dogger Bank during the weekend using the innovative suction installed Bucket Foundation and a “human free” technique for the steel tower placement. The latest mast to be installed – Dogger Bank Met Mast West - will provide essential wind, wave and other weather information, as well as marine traffic data for the Dogger Bank offshore wind energy development. It is located approximately 150 kilometres from the U.K. coast. Installed by Fred.

The latest seabed survey of the Dogger Bank offshore wind zone takes the cost of the Forewind consortium's spend on offshore surveys to almost £45 million. Since being awarded the rights to develop Dogger Bank in January 2010, Forewind has undertaken a huge range of geotechnical, geophysical and fish ecology surveys to understand and characterise the seabed and marine conditions of the zone as part of its environmental impact assessment work. The majority of the contracts have gone to UK companies including Hull-based Precision Marine Survey Limited…

The Dogger Bank offshore wind zone is proving to be a site for innovation as a new and safer installation technique has been used to lift Forewind’s initial meteorological mast tower on top of the innovative suction-installed bucket foundation. The use of the Bucket Foundation was also a UK industry first when placed on site in February. Fred. Olsen United implemented the concept of moving the riggers, who previously had to be near the lattice towers during installation, and instead introducing guide cones, therefore eliminating the risk of a swinging or falling load causing an accident.