Vroon's VOS Sympathy completes project for LD TravOcean

VOS Sympathy this week completed an exciting project for LD TravOcean, Vroon said in its press release.
 
VOS Sympathy, a subsea-support vessel operated by Vroon Offshore Services Den Helder, has spent the last few weeks laying a power cable between Quiberon and Belle-Ile in Brittany. The power cable, from the French mainland to the island Belle-Ile, will be connected to the main electrical grid and provide additional power capacity to the island.
 
The project lasted three weeks, with transit, cable loading and mobilisation of the lay spread on board the vessel being the most time-consuming tasks. The actual laying of the cable, which took place from the vessel’s starboard side, only lasted three days, partly due to the favourable weather conditions. With the assistance of small workboats, the cable was transferred from the vessel to shore. In shallow areas, the cable was pulled into the vessel from the shore. At the start of the project, the ferry service to the island had to be suspended for a few hours while VOS Sympathy started her operations, since transit spread during laying is obviously very slow (about 300 metres / hour). For the vessel’s crew it was a chance to make optimum use of the modern DP system, operating in “track-follow” mode.