Kongsberg Maritime is marking 50 years for the reason that introduction of its first dynamic positioning (DP) system, a Norwegian innovation that reworked offshore operations and set new requirements for security and effectivity at sea.
The story started within the mid-Nineteen Seventies, when offshore operations within the North Sea confronted harsh situations and harmful anchoring practices. A breakthrough got here in 1977 with the profitable stay take a look at of the world’s first Norwegian DP system on Stolt-Nielsen’s vessel Seaway Eagle.
This pioneering expertise allowed vessels to keep up place with out anchors, utilizing sensors and thrusters to counteract wind, waves and currents in actual time. It was a revolution that made offshore work safer and extra exact.
“If it hadn’t been for DP, there would have been no oil journey,” says Vegard Sæterlid, Head of Positioning and Manoeuvring at Kongsberg Maritime. “Dynamic Positioning modified the whole lot. It gave operators the power to work safely in among the harshest situations on earth, and it opened the door to a wholly new period of offshore operations. What began as a daring concept within the Nineteen Seventies is now a expertise that underpins hundreds of vessels worldwide and continues to evolve for the longer term.”
Since then, Kongsberg Maritime has remained on the forefront of DP innovation. At the moment, greater than 4,000 of its programs function worldwide on offshore vessels, semi-submersible platforms, wind-farm service ships and aquaculture vessels. The most recent technology, Okay-Pos, combines superior sensor information with energy administration and intuitive person interfaces, enabling operators to keep up place effectively whereas decreasing gas consumption and emissions.
DP is now a cornerstone of recent maritime operations, supporting the whole lot from offshore power initiatives to analysis and autonomous vessels. Additionally it is a key enabler of future ideas akin to distant and unmanned operations, serving to the trade obtain better sustainability and security.
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