O. H. Meling & Co. AS, Stavanger took delivery of the supply vessel SIDDIS SKIPPER from Kleven Verft AS, Ulsteinvik in January. The vessel is built in accordance with VS 470 MK II design at the cost of about NOK 143 million. The hull was built at Malta Shipbuilding Co. Ltd.

The completion work at Kleven Verft took only three and a half months to finish. This was actually a stipulation on the part of the Owners in order to meet a particular date set by the Charterers, Messrs. TotalElf.

SIDDIS SKIPPER is a combined standby- and rescue vessel and can accommodate up to 200 persons onboard in an emergency situation.

The vessel's main propulsion machinery features two Caterpillar 3606 diesel engines of 2030 kW each. These drive Scana Volda reduction gearboxes to turn the propellers of the same make. In order to optimize the manoeuvring capabilities the ship is equipped with four Brunvoll side thrusters type FU-63-LTC-1550.

On each gearbox is mounted a Leroy Somer shaft alternator type 3304 NA which, together with two Caterpillar generator sets with diesels type 3408 TA of 410 kW each, provide auxiliary power onboard.

The FiFi 1 system is supplied by Unitor AS, and Randaberg Sveiseindustri delivered both the bulk handling system and the tanks for dry bulk.

The accommodation quarters house 16 persons arranged in 8x1 man and 4x2 men cabins. Vico AS supplied electronic equipment such as Furuno FAR-2835S X-band and Furuno FAR-2825 radars, Furuno FE-700 echo sounder, Furuno GP-90 DGPS, Furuno DS-80 GPS, Simrad RGC 12 gyro compass, Simrad AP9 MKIII auto pilot and Sailor RT-2048 VHF. The DP-system is a Kongsberg Maritime delivery, and the IAS is from Bjørge Steinco Moland AS.

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