Osprey’s barges – always working
We have the largest fleet of UK-registered barges, ranging from 92 to 50 metres in length and up to 27 metres wide. Some of our barges have the capacity to load almost ten thousand tonnes of cargo. Our fleet is ready year-round for nearshore construction, deep-sea projects, cable deliveries, platforms and staging, component delivery, innovative installation projects and standard load-ins and loadouts of all kinds. That’s a significant scope, which means we’re constantly meeting myriad, diverse needs.
Recently, we were asked to provide two of our barges at short notice for one of our clients – this involved performing extensive modifications to both vessels. With more than 25 years’ marine experience, this isn’t a challenge. In less than two weeks we had tendered, been awarded, and started work on the outfitting for two barges, mobilising both on time, ready for work, as expected. Modifications involved heavy steelwork with a lot of background engineering, which of course goes through approval to our classification society, and we work closely with them to ensure all standards and regulations are adhered to.
At the same time, we were bringing OSPREY CARRIER and OSPREY TRADER back into condition – two barges that had been servicing clients’ needs in Nador, Morocco on a long-term project for several years. There, they had been deployed to support the ongoing work on this deep-water port. Both barges have been playing a critical role in construction, which meant they needed pulling into dry dock for inspection and remedial repairs. The process for this involves doing an extensive off-hire survey, generating a drydock specification based on this, and then going out to drydocks for tender.
We choose which drydocks we work with carefully, based on quality, as we strive to keep our fleet in top condition both structurally and aesthetically as this is what our clients demand – again, working closely with our classification society to ensure we do things properly every time. We like to keep things transparent here at Osprey and encourage inspections from our clients during these docking periods to show them first-hand what work is being carried out, and to give confidence that our barges are truly fit for purpose.
Even though we have the largest fleet in the UK, we are constantly monitoring the market and purchase our new barges to meet the needs of our customers and deliver purpose-built barges.
