During some hectic days, a total of 197 heaves of topside equipment for the cable laying ship Nexans Aurora have been offloaded at Ulstein Verft. The largest single heave was the cable capstan with a net weight of 176 tonnes.
The cable lying vessel Nexans Aurora is a large and compact ship. Measuring 149.9 metres in length and 31 metres in width, she has a dead weight of 17,000 tonnes. She has been designed to handle large quantities of subsea cables.
On 15 June, the hull of the Nexans Aurora arrived at Ulstein Verft. A few days later, a cargo vessel arrived at the shipyard, carrying several hundred tonnes of topside equipment to be installed in the cable laying vessel. The heavy lift department at Ulstein Verft operates a mobile crane which is capable of lifting 600 tonnes, so the heave of the 176t capstan from Maats Tech Ltd offered no difficulties.
In total, three ship loads of topside equipment will be delivered and unloaded at Ulstein Verft in connection with this project. In addition, comes all the other truck deliveries. In the next ship delivery the cable carousel will arrive. This has a capacity of 10,000 tonnes and can handle two cables at the same time. Normal cable diameter will be approximately 20 centimetres.
Included in the many other heaves were the two large laying wheels and all the 264 rollers for the cable carousel.
The hull of the Nexans Aurora has now been positioned in the dock hall at Ulstein Verft, and the outfitting of this newbuild has started.
The heavylift department are on their way to new assignments, this time at Fosen Yard in Rissa, county of Trøndelag, to transport a 130-tonne engine room section. For this task, two Goldhofer multiwheelers will be used, which have a total transport capacity of 640 tonnes.
Source: Ulstein Verft