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Solitaire (ship)
Solitaire is a large deep-sea pipe laying ship. It was at the time of conversion the world's largest pipe-laying ship at 300 metres (984 ft) long (excluding pipe-laying apparatus)[3] and 96,000 tonnes (94,000 long tons; 106,000 short tons).[4] When fully operational she has a crew of 420,[4] a pipe carrying capacity of 22,000 tonnes and a pipe lay speed of more than 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) a day.[5] The ship is owned by the Allseas Group, a Dutch pipelaying and marine construction firm with their headquarters in Switzerland.[6] HistoryThe ship was initially built in 1972 as a bulk carrier and launched as Trentwood by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries at their shipyard in Hiroshima, Japan.[2] In 1992, Allseas acquired Trentwood for conversion into a pipelaying vessel. Allseas awarded the conversion contract to Sembawang Shipyards in Singapore on a lump sum basis; however, the contract was terminated in 1995. The ship was subsequently converted at the Swan Hunter yard on Tyneside, United Kingdom.[7] Solitaire laid her first pipe on Statoil's Europipe project in 1999.[8] Allseas and Sembcorp reached a settlement for the Solitaire arbitration in 2006.[9] In 2006, while working on the Atwater Valley and Independence Trail projects in the Gulf of Mexico, Solitaire set new depth records, laying 10-inch pipeline in a water depth of 2,775 metres (9,104 ft) and 24-inch pipeline in a water depth of 2,550 metres (8,370 ft).[10] Among other ships, Solitaire laid the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea in 2019—2020.[11] References
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