The latest addition to the Van Oord fleet was unveiled Monday 21 May at the Wilhelminakade in Rotterdam. Subsea rock installation (SRI) vessel Bravenes was christened by Ms Yvon van Oord-Barbier, the wife of CEO Pieter van Oord.

The well-attended christening ceremony marked the start of a two-day event celebrating Van Oord's 150th anniversary.

Bravenes

The Bravenes is the third vessel to join Van Oord’s SRI fleet. SRI vessels stabilise and protect subsea pipelines, cables and other structures at depths down to 1500 m. The Bravenes is an innovative vessel in its class because of its ability to install rock in three different ways:

  • through a fallpipe inserted through the moonpool,
  • through a fallpipe over the side, and
  • through a tremie pipe over the side.

Thanks to the latter, it can perform subsea rock installation at close proximity to offshore platforms. The Bravenes also has the ability to load and install large rocks and features a fully automatic fallpipe loading and transport system.

Projects

After the christening celebrations, the Bravenes will be setting course for Norway to work on various North Sea projects. From mid-July, it will be carrying out stabilisation operations for Nord Stream 2, the gas pipeline that will stretch from Russia to Germany.

Pictures by Van Oord.