Heerema Marine Contractors’ heavy lift vessel Aegir has earlier this week experienced a drop fall incident off the coast of Taiwan where it is working on an offshore wind project.
There were no injuries as a result of the incident, and no environmental impact has occurred. The piling frame and pin pile have only suffered minimal damage, a Heerema spokesman said.
Work had just started on this project, and currently, foundation installation has been temporarily paused pending investigation. The exact cause of the incident is yet unknown and will be the subject of a thorough investigation.
The Aegir was pre-piling jacket foundation piles when the incident happened. According to Heerema the hammer is retrieved from the pile and is back on Aegir’s deck.
While it is yet not clear why the incident happened, a drop fall incident can happen when a pile suddenly drops due to unexpected soil conditions during the pile driving operations.
Last year Heerema won a contract with Jan de Nul to install 21 jacket foundations (4 legged) for the Changhua project, 8 km off the coast of Changhua county.