The Turkish shipbuilding industry, which has come to the fore in global competition with value-added production in the shipbuilding sector, has marked another first in this field.

Produced for the first time in Turkey by Cemre Tersanesi, the "Esvagt Mercator" wind turbine maintenance vessel was delivered to Danish Esvagt, one of the industry's leading companies.

Cemre Tersanesi's project coordinator Samet Cırlak stated that the vessel was built with an investment of approximately 20 million euros.

"The most important thing for us is to please our clients with our projects and receive new projects," Cırlak said.

Attracting the attention of many companies operating in Europe in the construction of special-purpose ships, Turkey aims to make a name for itself in the construction of wind turbine maintenance and support vessels.

Noting that the NB48 Esvagt Mercator wind turbine ship, built by Cemre Tersanesi for the first time, is the second major project to be carried out in the offshore area, Cırlak said that the project was signed in November 2015, and that the first eight-month period progresses as a basic and detailed design phase.

He said they started the production after the eighth month.

"The project was completed in 22 months. For vessels with such high added value, this time is shortened. The supply and construction period of the equipment took 14 months," he noted.

Pointing out that the vessel has a capacity of 22 technicians, he said social areas were also provided for employees on board, including movie theaters, meeting rooms and much more.

The project coordinator said Danish Esvagt will continue its support service undertaken in the Belwind 1 (Belgium) Wind Turbine Field for the MHI Vestas company with the NB48 Esvagt Mercator vessel, highlighting that in addition to its compact structure, Esvagt Mercator is also noteworthy in terms of energy efficiency.

He said that the NB53 MPV Multipurpose Support Vessel, another project under Cemre Tersanesi, which carries out both offshore and wind turbine support tasks, is also being built for Danish Esvagt.

Cırlak stated that the success achieved with NB48 and NB53 led to the NB57 project in the same category.

"The wind turbine maintenance and service ship, which we continue to build for our French customer LDA with the NB57 build number, is bulkier than the Esvagt Mercator," he continued.

He said that the total cost of the 66-technician-capacity ship, which embodies the high-tech service systems that the LDA will operate for DONG, is expected to be around 40 million euros.

Cırlak said that they signed the current contract in January 2017, and that 30 percent of the construction process is completed, adding that they plan to deliver the project by the end of 2018.

He pointed out that they aim to provide energy efficiency by using variable speed applications in generators.

"Given the fuel consumption of the ship, the vessel is equipped with generators capable of running at variable speeds. The aim here is to provide energy efficiency," he said. "We can say that the average value of energy consumption is 20-30 percent higher in high-speed machines. But in the mid-cycle, you gain an advantage with regards to energy efficiency. We aim to achieve this in the NB57 for the first time."

Stressing that the tests for medium-speed variable speed generators are currently continuing successfully, Cırlak said they are also contributing to the diversification of the product range in this area by lowering the variable speed generators to the medium speed machine group.

"This will be the first in the world, and I can say that we are the first Turkish company to execute this," he concluded.