Met Mast Refurbishment

Project Information

Scroby Sands Offshore Wind Farm is located off the coast of Great Yarmouth in the North Sea, due to severe corrosion and mechanical damage to the wind farms Met Mast a tender was put forward by E.ON Climate & Renewables UK Ltd.

Due to their extensive experience of working at height in a variety of industries, including the offshore sector, Abfad Limited were awarded the tender to provide the relevant maintenance and restoration work using rope access techniques.

The Project

The project details provided by E.ON were to fabricate new ladder sections and eight clamps, remove existing damaged ladder sections and clamps, blast clean the structure to SA2.5 standard and apply a protective coating, install new clamps and tighten using Hydratight hydraulic equipment, then install new access ladders to the structure.

The existing ladder sections were damaged and the structural steelwork beneath the walkway gratings and the mast steel itself was highly corroded down to sea elevation.

Once Abfad’s rope access technicians gained access the existing ladder sections were removed prior to blasting work being carried out on the structure to remove all corrosion.

Abfad’s Magnetic Positioning Aid

Our rope access teams use our own Abfad Magnet System developed as a positioning aid whilst working on ferrous structures. The Magnet System is particularly useful when blasting and spraying as it securely positions the rope access technician closer to the structure that is being worked on, holds them in a steady position and allows them to perform the required work with precision. More on Abfad’s Magnet System can be found by clicking here.

After all blasting work was completed, the met mast was spray coated with a protective coating in order to protect it from further corrosion.

Installation Technique

Once new ladder and clamp sections were fabricated and coated ready for installation, a technique had to be agreed to install them from the support vessel to the mast structure, during sea swells, ensuring that the support vessel deck was not damaged during the lifting process.

This was achieved by using powered (battery) winches to swiftly lift the clamps and ladder sections into place and hold them steady while they were installed by Abfad personnel using rope access techniques. Once installed the new clamp sections were then tightened to specification using the Hydratight hydraulic equipment.

Project Completion

To complete the project final inspection and commissioning checks were performed, again using rope access methods.

All parties considered the project a complete success and Abfad was asked at a later date to return to the met mast at Scroby Sands and perform NDT inspections to the structure. During this visit we also performed tightening of all bolts on the mast to complete the work specifications.