Completion of offshore buoy recovery contract

James Fisher companies Fendercare and James Fisher Defence have together completed the recovery of a 14m diameter, 175T mooring buoy, four anchors and over 5km of chain and wire from the seabed off Toulon, France.

The buoy, a catenary anchor leg mooring (CALM) buoy has been used as an integral part of the equipment trials for the Royal Navy’s new Type 45 destroyers on exercises in the Mediterranean. Having supplied some of the original equipment, the James Fisher team won the £2 million contract to decommission the buoy when it was no longer required.

Using remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and a dive team mobilised to the offshore support vessel ‘Normand Pioneer’, the James Fisher team surveyed all equipment on the seabed, cut and recovered all chains, two 60T gravity anchors and two purpose-built plough anchors. The CALM buoy was towed into Toulon where it will be recycled while all the remaining items were offloaded at Great Yarmouth. On completion of the recovery work a seabed survey was undertaken and additional debris was cleared. In all, over 1200T of equipment was recovered from the mooring site.

Following an initial mobilisation in Peterhead on 21 to 23 December the ship sailed for Toulon from where the recovery operation was managed. All recovery work was undertaken between 6 and 16 January and the ship returned to Great Yarmouth to offload, arriving on 25 January. Due to the size of the anchors and chain, the safety of the ship and its crew were of paramount importance at all times and all work was controlled through carefully developed and agreed procedures.

Tim Harris, chairman of James Fisher and Sons plc, said:

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