Edison Chouest Offshore and Island Offshore have ordered two new OCV vessels through the company Island Ventures II LLC. One vessel will be built at Ulstein Verft, Norway and one in USA, a first for Ulstein. The Ulstein X165 design will be the largest vessel built at the Ulsteinvik yard so far, as well as its largest single shipbuilding contract.

The vessel is scheduled for delivery in 2015. A sister vessel will also be built at Edison Chouest’s own yard in the United States. In addition, this agreement includes options. The newly developed SX165 design has many qualities. The vessel is 28 metres wide and 145.7 metres long and can accommodate 200 people. She is equipped with two cranes that can lift 400 tons and 140 tons, respectively. She has a large moon pool measuring 11.2 by 12 metres plus two smaller moon pools with ROVs installed in a centrally located hangar. The vessel has a total of three separate engine rooms to provide extreme operational reliability: if a major error occurs and one of the engine rooms goes out of service, the ship will still have two-thirds of her operational capacity.

Health, safety and the environment have been fully considered in the development of this design. For example, the vessel will be delivered in accordance with the international regulation MLC2006 that sets out the comfort and safety requirements for the crew. The ship has four lifeboats, two on each side. In addition, the vessel is equipped with SCR catalyst system for NOx emission reduction.