We began this week with our annual Twelve Days of Christmas in offshore series by looking at rig owners selling vessels and a Taiwanese operator’s new-ish vessel acquisitions.
This time, as promised earlier, we will take a closer look at a new entrant in the subsea vessel operating sector.
Enter Windcat, the Saverys family renewables company which the Belgian deepsea tycoons acquired for their CMB from Seacor in early 2021. As with Norwind, a company that has deployed its first supposedly renewables focused commissioning service operation vessel (CSOV) Norwind Gale into the Brazilian oil and gas market (here), so, too, Windcat is looking at diversifying into oil and gas support.
Windcat was also the feature of our second day of Christmas in 2022, so the evolution of the company is interesting. It started as a crewboat operator in the North Sea, a low margin and highly competitive business. In CMB’s most recent quarterly results, its crewboats averaged around US$3,400 per day in revenue on 77 per cent utilisation.
Windcat then diversified into the CSOV market, where the newbuild orderbook far exceeds any measure of expected short-term demand. CMB’s own quarterly report states that the, "CSOV fleet stands today at 43 units, versus an orderbook of 28 units (OB/F 65.1 per cent)," a rather high ratio, given that the report also states the following:
“The underlying offshore wind market remains challenging, with a continued disconnect between auction awards (secured offtake) and final investment decisions. The year has also been marked by several zero-bid auctions, underscoring margin pressure and cost inflation across the supply chain.”
In August 2025, Windcat took delivery of Windcat Rotterdam (read Baird Maritime's detailed review of this CSOV here), the first of six vessels in its new CSOV series, which was constructed in Vietnam. In the third quarter, the first CSOV was chartered for US$27,272 per day. Note that CMB is one of the few CSOV operators to give actual rate averages for its fleet.
CMB claims the fourth quarter revenue for the segment has now surged to just under US$120,000 per day. I am not sure how, as AIS data show the vessel has been at anchor for most of the last few weeks in Asia.
Never one to miss out on the next big thing, whether windfarm support, hydrogen fuel or newbuilding tankers, CMB is now joining Norwind, John Fredriksen’s Sea Tankers, Allseas, REM Offshore, Olympic and many others in the newbuild subsea support vessel market. The subsea market is now a crowded space like that of the CSOVs, with which many of the subsea vessels will end up competing.
Norwegian brokers Fearnleys have reported in their bulletin that the shipbuilding orderbook for such vessels with offshore cranes between 150 tons and 250 tons capacity has grown to more than 25 newbuilds, with deliveries beginning in the second half of next year. Fearnleys said that it sees 2027 as, “potentially setting a new record for the highest number of CSOVs delivered in any one year.” With rates apparently touching US$200,000, the influx is not surprising.
Neither is the interest of CMB as well as Dong Fang Offshore. What is surprising is the size of the Windcat order: one firm vessel and five options. Each of these ships will cost around US$100 million, so if the options are exercised, this will be a huge investment by CMB.
We covered the order and the specification here. New entrants to subsea typically underestimate the amount of support that is required even when a subsea vessel is chartered to a construction or project company (like DeepOcean, Saipem, McDermott, Boskalis, Oceaneering, Helix, etc, etc).
This is not the same as chartering a VLCC or a bulker (CMB’s core businesses) where the owner hires some low-cost crew on four- or six-month contracts from a ship manager, issues an invoice, and waits for the cash to arrive. Subsea is an expertise-intensive business with a lot of engineering support and planning required to integrate the vessel with the client’s needs.
Just as the Greek owners who have slapped cranes on the back of platform supply vessels in the hope that they will command twice the day rates of standard supply ships will discover, offshore subsea work ain’t easy.
Which of our two turtle doves will be delivered sooner? Will it be the aged bird ordered by Dong Fang, or the new hatch from Windcat with its 190-passenger capacity, 3,981kWh battery pack, and dual-fuel hydrogen engine?
I guess we will know by Christmas 2028…
Last week, I banged on about highlighted the fiasco of the Nautical Institute’s continuing professional development (CPD) requirements for dynamic position operators (DPOs). The feedback from readers and actual seafarers has been incredibly positive and there has been a lot of supportive discussion on social media.
There has also been one criticism which I will address here:
“The Baird Marine [sic] piece being shared is not an authoritative analysis. It is an anonymous opinion article containing several factual errors and contradictions, written under a pen name so the author carries no responsibility for the claims they make. Basing industry judgement on that is unwise.
"On CPD itself, the comparison being made is odd. Every safety-critical profession expects ongoing development. No one would suggest a surgeon or pilot should skip CPD, yet some seem to imply that dynamic positioning can be exempt. The reality is that modern vessel operations demand up-to-date knowledge, consistent standards, and transparent competence. That is not a tax; it is a basic expectation in a high-risk environment.
Criticism is healthy when it is grounded in evidence. What does not help is recycling anonymous commentary as if it represents the industry view. It does not. The industry is moving forward, and most people recognise that continual learning is part of keeping vessels, crews, and offshore workers safe.”
Let’s address the anonymity thing. It would be really awkward if I turned up at an IMCA or an NI meeting after writing a piece criticising IMCA and the NI, and everyone knew who I was. That’s why we are anonymous, not because we don’t know our stuff, but because who we are is not relevant to the discussion. Critics should play the ball, not the man or woman.
If there are factual issues, please feel free to write to the editor at editor@bairdmaritime.com and we will review, and likely publish your feedback (four calling birds Boschian errors or five gold rings of Hieronymus’ mistakes could be next week’s Twelve Days of Christmas feature).
We shall also address the point that one commentator made, that there are alternatives to the NI DP scheme. This is true; the NI does not hold a monopoly if you define monopoly very narrowly:
“Under IMCA information note 1501 DPO certification there are currently three available DPO training schemes that meet the standards of IMCA M117 – Guidelines for the Training and Experience of Key DP Personnel: NI, DNV and OSVDPA,”
However, the NI has over 27,000 DPOs certified under its scheme, which I think is over 90 per cent market share (happy to be corrected). Neither DNV nor OSVDPA publishes figures of the DPOs they certify, and I don’t know about interoperability between the schemes. Can you switch once you hold an unlimited DPO certificate from one scheme to another? How many do?
Anyway, 27,000 DPOs under the NI scheme means this is by far the biggest and most important DP certification scheme. Indeed, the NI itself wrote the following:
"Until 2013, it was the only training scheme for DPOs accepted internationally by the offshore industry, and DPOs certified by the NI are often stated as a requirement by DP vessel charterers.
Let’s be clear; we are not against continuing professional development, nor would we ever wish to see safety compromised, nor do the many seafarers, who feel that their time and money are wasted on the current mandatory, online assessments that are considered CPD for DPOs.
What we do object to is the misrepresentation that the CPD that is mandatory for DPOs is anything like the CPD that other professionals undertake. There are three clear differences:
1. Most doctors, lawyers, actuaries, insurance brokers and accountants are paid by their employers to attend CPD. Teachers take their CPD in term time paid by their schools across most of the developed world. Indeed, every working parent shudders at the thought of the teacher training days when their kids are suddenly at home, whereas for the teachers it is another day being paid at work, but without the kids in the classroom.
However, most seafarers are expected to do their CPD on their own time, unpaid by any employer. Worse, very few doctors, lawyers, actuaries, insurance brokers and accountants work on two-month contracts and then face the uncertainty of whether and when they will get a new job. This is a reality for many seafarers. There is no job security at sea for most officers, and even master mariners and chief engineers earn a fraction of what senior lawyers, actuaries, insurance brokers and accountants are paid by their employers.
Very few doctors, lawyers, actuaries, insurance brokers and accountants do their CPD unpaid in their holidays, but this is the expectation from the DP CPD assessment.
2. Not only do employers mostly pay the doctors, lawyers, actuaries, insurance brokers and accountants their salaries to attend CPD, they also pay for the courses themselves, whereas thousands and thousands of seafarers are paying hundreds of dollars a year for their CPD from their own money. This would be unheard of in PWC, KMPG, the British NHS, or at any school.
Guess what, your teachers are not paying for the privilege of taking CPD courses on teacher training days! Their school provides the course to them for free, and pays them to participate, a luxury most seafarers can only wonder at.
3. Finally there is what counts as CPD. Consider this ABL Market Briefing in London later this month. You will note that, “this is a CPD-accredited event by the Chartered Insurance Institute. Attendance in-person or online is worth up to one CPD hour.”
That’s CPD in another profession: not CPD that you have to pay for, not an online test via an app. But like CPD you might want to undertake, where you are served tea and biscuits by a leading marine survey company, and that you have a choice to attend.
Look at the English Law Society’s CPD page here. You will note that many of the courses are marked as “free” in block capitals. This is because the Law Society recognises that CPD is a service it provides to its paying members to improve their professional skills, not as a profit centre.
Enough said. How something is executed, matters. I am not against CPD for DPOs; I am against how it is currently structured and charged.
There has to be a better way – one that genuinely helps seafarers with their skills, using courses that are enjoyable and offer professional value and value for money. At the moment, this is simply not the case, as nearly every piece of feedback to Captain Aleksandr Vasko’s social media post continues to suggest.
Background reading
Read here, here, and here for the second, third, and fourth parts of last year's Twelve Days of Christmas.