Project Summary

A concept design has been developed for a novel trimaran, capable of operating as a crew transfer vessel for offshore wind farms, with the aim of achieving significantly reduced emissions and a higher level of crew comfort than compared to the current industry standard. The trimaran has been designed to be powered with methanol, thereby reducing emissions and supporting vessel owners in selecting an alternative fuel type. It is intended that the increased sea keeping performance will lead to higher operational efficiency for the vessel and a reduction in fuel usage, further impacting a reduction in emissions.??Work to develop the technology has been carried out in collaboration with Pelagic Design.

Project Achievements

A concept design for a trimaran crew transfer vessel for offshore windfarms was taken from TRL2 to TRL5 by conducting tank testing in both flat water and scaled waves. During this process, further design investigations were conducted, along with a deeper look into the classification society rules associated with methanol vessels. The testing has provided excellent validation data for our computational fluid dynamics tools, particularly for the area of main hull and outer hull interaction.

Conclusions

The result of the studies has been that we feel the concept is more appropriate for vessels with a lower speed / length ratio than the market we are initially targeting. This would either mean operating at a lower speed, or having a longer vessel. The speed / length ratio of the existing design was informed by the length restriction of 24m under the Work Boat Code, and the speed was set by typical operating speeds established during a market survey.

Next Steps

To operate at a different speed / length ratio requires us to look at vessels outside the crew transfer sector, potentially autonomous vessels, and harbour ferries. In these sectors, the trimaran configuration may also suit battery powered vessels. We will re-evaluate these sectors and see where the concept is most appropriate for the highest chance of successfully getting to TRL-9 and a commercially attractive proposition.