BV Delivers an Approval in Principle to a New-Gen Offshore Access Gangway Facility

Paris La Défense, France – April 24, 2023: Bureau Veritas, a world leader in testing, inspection and certification, has delivered an Approval in Principle (AiP) to an innovative access gangway system developed by Japan Radio Co., Ltd. (JRC), a leading company in telecommunications technology. The system will be installed on board of the work vessel of offshore wind farms and enables workers to transfer safely from ships to offshore wind farms to be installed in waters close to the coastline.

The system developed by JRC is small and lightweight, making the equipment well-suited for small work vessels, for example Crew Transfer Vessels (CTVs), with a six-axis motion compensation system that reduces ship motions so that it can be safely moved back and forth even at sea. The system is flexible and can be installed either on new vessels or retrofitted on the existing fleet. At this stage, JRC targets the Japan market and anticipates the system to be available by 2024.

BV reviewed the technical specifications, general arrangement and failure mode effect analysis of the gangway system to validate its safety and reliability. The assessment was based on BV’s Guidance Note NI629, which provides guidelines for the certification of offshore access systems (OAS), based on gangways, and used for the transfer of persons from ships to offshore facilities or from ship to ship.

The demand for safe and efficient walk to work (W2W) systems is increasing in the offshore industry. As the offshore market continues to develop, there will be a significant growth in the use of offshore access gangway systems for the manning and transfer of personnel to and from offshore facilities.