Leading Independent Marine Plant and Wind Farm Support Vessel Operator Fastnet Shipping Limited has successfully completed a 2nd Successful Jack Up Barge and Marine Plant Deployment on the £1.65 Billion Forth Replacement Crossing (FRC) Project.
Billed as the largest infrastructure project in the UK for this decade The Forth Replacement Crossing is crucial to keeping Scotland’s transport network flowing.
During this Deployment Fastnet Shipping was employed by the main contractors FCBC (Forth Crossing Bridge Constructors Consortium) to supply and operate a Jack Up Barge and safety vessel for The 3rd Round of Marine site investigations on Firth of Forth.
All works were completely carried out on-board Fastnet Shipping’s Modular Jack Up Barge “Fastnet Jack 1” over a period of three and a half months from November 2011 to February 2012. Working directly for the main contractor FCBC, the Data that was obtained throughout the investigation will be used to complete and finalise any final design changes before heavy construction of the supporting towers and piers begins.
Fastnet Shipping and their crew were no strangers to the Forth Replacement Crossing and the high demands and requirements of the job as this was their 2nd deployment on the project, Fastnet had previously been employed during the 1st round of Marine Investigations where they provided all marine plant, towage, crew transfers ,marine support and marine coordination over a demanding 4 month period in 2008.
During this Latest deployment Fastnet demobilised , transported and remobilised their barge, crew and equipment from a project in South West Ireland to the Forth and were back up and running in less than 72 hours .
Due to demanding local conditions on site during Fastnets initial deployment in 2008 their Barge “Jackup” had to be modified to suit local ground conditions where the barges leg length was increased from 34m to 42m in order to combat leg Penetrations of up to 18m in very soft silts in water depths of 22m very close to the main shipping channel at the location of the south tower.
In order to overcome the same difficulties on the 3rd round of investigations with their smaller modular barge “Fastnet Jack 1” the barge was modified onsite during the project to operate in spud mode this involved increasing her leg length to 34m and installing a 4 point mooring system with high holding power delta flipper anchors.
