Windcat Workboats orders six hydrogen-powered CTVs

Crew transfer vessel operator Windcat Workboats, part of Antwerp-based shipping and logistics group Compagnie Maritime Belge (CMB), together with its joint venture partners Thomas Services Maritime (TSM) and FRS Offshore, will be adding six additional hydrogen-powered vessels by 2024.

The new order follows the launch of the world’s first hydrogen-powered CTV, the Hydrocat 48, and its delivery and trials with its first customer Vestas earlier this year.

The six additional hydrogen-powered CTVs include four vessels of the so-called MK3.5H2 series, two of which will be delivered in 2022 and two in 2023. The next vessel that will be delivered in this series is intended for the German offshore market and will be operated by joint-venture partner FRS Windcat. The other two vessels will be of the new MK5 series, a 27 m long vessels with double the hydrogen capacity of the MK3.5H2 series.

Windcat Workboats owns and operates a growing fleet of over 48 CTVs, mainly in the European offshore wind sector, but also in the oil and gas industry and outside Europe. The company said it is working with CMB’s clean technology division, CMB.Tech, to further optimise engine capacities with the aim of increasing the percentage of hydrogen used in their dual fuel design, with a long-term plan to eventually enable a mono-fuel option through the internal combustion engine.