Offshore staff
LONDON — Vattenfall says a new rescue system has dramatically increased the chances of pulling anyone who has fallen overboard from a ship safely out of the water in under a minute.
At a three-day demonstration around Vattenfall’s Ramsgate offshore wind cluster, offshore search and rescue specialists Zelim demonstrated how its Swift Rescue Conveyor system operates like a conveyor belt that is rapidly deployed into the water and pulls people to safety on board. The trials in Ramsgate showed it to be much faster, safer and easier to rescue one or more people compared with conventional rescue systems, according to Vattenfall.
Demonstrations to recover a manikin carried out harborside showed that Zelim’s Swift system was about four times faster than other conventional systems. When the trials moved two nautical miles offshore, in high winds and choppy seas, Swift performed even better being 20 times faster at recovering the manikin (see photo above).
The Swift can be incorporated into the design of a new crew transfer vessel or retrofitted, providing an enhanced rescue capability, making it ideal for use in the offshore wind industry, Vattenfall said.
The demonstration was organised in collaboration with the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult, with which Vattenfall cooperates for testing and demonstrating new technologies for the offshore renewable industry. Zelim Swift was operated by a single Zelim engineer while the conventional equipment was operated by a member of the CWind vessel crew, which supplied the boat for the demonstration.
05.22.2023
