On the outskirts of Varde is Seasight Solutions Development & Engineering, which is part of the Seasight Group in Hvide Sande. At Seasight Solutions Development & Engineering, a group of 14 specialists work on development and design. The customers are almost exclusively in the wind industry.
- We create technical solutions, and the wind industry is a special focus area for us. 95 percent of what we do is for the wind industry. We have also developed and designed lifting yokes for Fehmarn, says 33-year-old mechanical engineer Lasse Jørgensen, who is a team leader for three engineers.
In addition to engineers, there are technical draftsmen and documentation people, and there is a reason for that.
- Everything we develop and design requires documentation, and we are well equipped for that. What we do is very standard-bound, and that means we do both the documentation and, for example, risk analysis. We are not going to draw garden gates, says Lasse Jørgensen, who has his own way of explaining his work:
- I usually say that I make the cool machines.
That expertise is precisely what helps smaller forging and machine shops.
- We also function as a consultancy. It can be smaller forging companies that do not have the capacity themselves, so we create user manuals, risk assessments and production bases for them, explains Lasse Jørgensen.
Development for the wind industry
The OEMs in wind are more likely to develop and design for than oil and gas.
- The wind industry is a relatively new industry, and there are not the same fixed requirements as in oil and gas. Within wind, there are some direct requirements from the wind turbine companies instead, although many of the requirements are similar.
The OEM customers come with wishes or ideas to Seasight Solution Development & Engineering, and then the development is started. But the fully developed product belongs to the OEM.
- The wind industry is unique. The customer owns the IP rights, even though we have developed and designed the product. We then get paid for that, says Lasse Jørgensen.
But Seasight Solution Development & Engineering now also has products where you own the rights yourself.
- We also have our own products, such as our APS. Everyone in the industry knows APS, says Lasse Jørgensen about the autonomous positioning system (APS) drone, which can facilitate installations of wings, nacelles, drive trains, generators, and the hub, which DOI.dk has previously written about.
The child of the heart
However, there is one design and development project that the engineer has a very special relationship with.
- This is the most extensive machine I have been involved in building in my engineering career, says Lasse Jørgensen, while showing a screenshot of a BMU or Blade Mover Universal, there is a self-propelled transport vehicle for turbine blades.
- The BMU can take a turbine blade from a blade rack of up to a total of 76 tons. It is made to move blades safely and quickly around ports and factory areas. We were two engineers who worked on it for almost a year. It is definitely my favorite. We made the BMU for an OEM, explains Lasse Jørgensen, who is happy to explain the advantages:
- It is made to not have a free-hanging load, and it is safer. In addition, it saves time, for example if a ship is waiting to get turbine blades on board.
The BMU in the photo for this article is now in operation at a large port in the Far East.
- This version is running at the port of Shanghai with turbine blades, and it was delivered in the spring of 2022, he says about a delivery that was different than usual.
- We couldn't send a man out to teach how to use the BMU because of corona, so we made this video, explains Lasse Jørgensen about a user manual that just worked.
But in the design phase, emphasis was also placed on the fact that the BMU should be easy and intuitive to operate.
- We make products for reality, says Lasse Jørgen about the BMU, which was developed and designed in Varde and manufactured at Seasight Group in Hvide Sande and Ringkøbing, before it was tested at the Port of Aalborg before shipping to China.
He also has a sober and somewhat West Jutlandic take on how the upcoming expansion of offshore wind will affect the sales of a product like the BMU.
- Potentially we could make many of them.
The BMU can be produced as diesel, hybrid and electric powered.
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