German police boat conversion for wind park

The boat, renamed Gode Wind after the wind park it will serve, used to be called Fehmarn and was built by the J.G. Hitzler yard in Lauenburg in 1988. It was converted for Frisia Offshore, a subsidiary of Reederei Norden-Frisia, at a reported cost of €420,000 by the Diedrich Shipyard in Oldersum on the North Sea.

Gode Wind, 28.3m loa, 6.2m wide and with a design draught of 1.8m, arrived at Diedrich in late August for classification to 1 DO A5 RSA 50 E for completion by late September.

Yard MD Jens Schaedler told MJ the original boat remained largely intact. He said only a few changes had been made to the stern fendering and added that the original twin MWM TBD 604 BV12 engines, each of 1,197kW at 1,690 rpm, had also been retained to provide 21 knots.

Fehmarn was bought from the Schleswig-Holstein police and only recently replaced in police service by a 27.2m modern namesake, one of a series of new police boats from the Fassmer Werft.

The old Fehmarn measured 28.5m long, with a 6.6m beam and a draft of 1.6m. It had a top speed of about 18 knots and a service radius of 860 nautical miles, with a reputation for being very sea worthy with good seakeeping characteristics.

Gode Wind is the third special purpose offshore vessel for Norden-Frisia, better known as a ferry operator but now active also in the emerging wind farm service sector. Last year Diedrich built the 22m, CAT driven offshore transport catamaran Wind Force 1 for the owner. In 2008 Frisia also took the 48.8m buoy layer Otto Treplin into service as a wind farm service boat.

By Tom Todd