Design-Driven Innovation: an OSV Platform WFSV Mothership For North Sea Operations

Research has indicated that current wind farm support vessels will not be appropriate for accessing the UK Round 3 far shore wind farms of the North Sea. In order to improve operability of WFSV accessing the far shore wind farms, mothership vessels will be required. Extrapolating the European Wind Energy Association's (EWEA) growth scenario for the period up till 2030 for employment in the installation, operation and maintenance, of offshore wind farms, it will be necessary to recruit land based technicians to meet the demand. Therefore, next generation motherships will need to address the user needs and aspirations of a new generation of technicians, who may not have previous marine experience. This paper presents a mothership concept design proposal, that challenges perceptions of the working and living environment on commercial vessels through the implementation of Design-Driven Innovation. The interaction between innovation of design meaning and technology innovation can transform the market within an industry and even create new market sectors. An analysis of the offshore wind market identified the challenges of vessel financing compared to the oil & gas sector, as a unique opportunity for a common platform technology vessel. The concept presented has an innovative WFSV launch/recovery system enabling a conventional OSV platform to be adapted into a mothership role. Resulting in a more cost effective solution in terms of design and construction that the benchmarked specialist vessels.