By K.Steiner-Dicks on May 21, 2014

The company said that it found that existing weather risk analysis tools are either too primitive or do not directly answer the questions that marine operators are asking. The tool could open up to the tidal sector, especially now as larger devices head to deeper waters.

Traditional methods of calculating weather downtime using probabilistic methods such as Monte Carlo analysis do not directly answer the question, are too simplistic and do not have sufficient detail for the marine operations planning in the detail required to build an accurate risk model, said Mojo Maritime in a statement.

“This approach can lead to flawed and misleading results. Mermaid analyses the fine detail of each operation against set parameters - this allows a baseline to be developed and multiple scenarios to be developed in the optimisation process,” said the company.

Mojo Maritime’s planning software tool Mermaid (Marine Economic Risk Management Aid) has been created through years of hard earned operational experience, the company said.

Mermaid is designed specifically for the analysis of weather risk on offshore operations and its flexible, user orientated design allows a multitude of operations to be considered in high levels of detail. Mermaid analyses operations like a marine operations manager and provides useful, informative outputs which allow operation optimisation, risk mitigation and ultimately success.

Mermaid has been used to analyse the historic installation of the foundations at the Egmond Aan Zee Offshore Wind Farm, located near Ijmuiden, Holland. Mermaid was used to consider the mobilisation, transportation of components, piling, lifting operation and grouting and demobilisation. By comparison of the Mermaid analysis to the actual installation cycle times it was seen that Mermaid performed exceptionally well, over predicting the project duration by less than 1% and accurately reflecting the downtime seen during the project.

By analysing work with multiple vessels, simultaneous operations, detailed operational tasks and marine warranty surveyor constraints, Mermaid models operations in a realistic manner, according to the company.

“By considering multiple options, such as installation methods, device or foundation types or alternative vessels and ports, Mermaid can be used to select the most appropriate options for offshore work. This process leads to efficient project optimization, cost reduction and provides a robust engineering baseline to start prior to engaging expensive offshore assets,” said the company.