Dockwise Completes First Float-Over in Vyborg Project

After nearly two years of engineering, procurement, and project preparations, Dockwise has completed the first of two float-overs for the Vyborg Project in Korea. The Vyborg Project with total revenues of approximately $100m is big in scope. And size: It involves moving two 15,000 metric ton semi-submersible hulls and two topsides that weigh approximately 19,000 metric tons each. These pieces were constructed in locations more than 27,000 km apart and the Dockwise vessel the Black Marlin was used to successfully load one of the two topsides for transport to the float-over location Korea, to be joined with a hull that was transported from Vyborg, Russia to Korea by the Talisman. It was Dockwise's scope to design and install the pre-laid anchor spread, hook the Hull to this spread and ballast the Hull to its mating draft. This part involved the use of five tugs, two anchor handlers, one workboat, two anchor barges, one test barge, a crane barge, three launch boats and guard boats.

An especially innovative feature is the "floating float-over" aspect of this project: This float-over was completed without a fixed structure. Instead, a floating structure was anchored down and ballasted down to keep it in place while Dockwise performed the float-over operation. After the Black Marlin docked into the hull, which was ballasted down to an 88.5-ft draft, ballasting operations were then underway, in order to lock the Leg Mating Units and align the hull columns and the topside. Next steps included welding the columns to the topside under a partial load transfer, after which they released the load from the Leg Mating Units and began ballast operations to transfer the full load of the topside onto the hull columns. On July 10, the Black Marlin was retracted from the completed rig and de-ballasting operations will be completed in the next few days.

The second topside and hull will be completed using the same process later this fall.