Vos Guardian
IMO : 9064188
Build : 1993 by Yorkshire Dry Dock, Kingston upon Hill in the U.K., nr ?? as Scot Guardian
Guard vessels: an apart breed of ships, used to protect offshore installations from wandering vessels, also used as a safety vessel in case something goes terribly wrong on the offshore installation and they have to evacuate. They usually can carry plenty people and have some fast rescue boats. Some of them actually can do some supplywork & interfieldservices.
And this one is even more unusual as has kinda strange lines…and the funnels at the wrong place!
Dunno source via the Interweb
She began her life with a totally different colorscheme, shown below is her sistership, the Viking Victory in their old colors.
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I was an engineer on the original crew who took the Trafalgar Guardian out of Yorkshire Drydock Co in Hull back in 1993(ish).She was the 2nd vessel in the series,the first one was the Scott Guardian,Trafalgar Guardian was named after the Nelson Platform which was to be her location for Enterprise Oil,the TG was operated by Tidewater Marine.
The original colours were red hull,white superstructure and green decks.
They were fairly advanced vessels at that time as they had 3 azimuthing Aquamaster units,the fwd one being retractable and also had large ballast tanks which could be flooded quickly to lower her down to rescue draft to provide a more stable platform and a rescue zone with much less freeboard to get survivors aboard more easily.
The funnels do look a bit odd,one is a dummy just for aesthetics and the other is for the Caterpillar engine driving the fwd Auamaster and also the fwd Caterpillar generator.They reckoned it would have looked odder with one funnel which would have to have been mounted to one side so as not to interfere with fwd field of vision from bridge.Main engine exhausts came up through superstructure and bridge to monkey island.
The casing aft of the fwd exhausts was a 90 ton stability tank.
Also,they were known as Safety Standby Vessels(SSBV) and now as (ERRV)Emergengy Response Rescue Vessels,not Guardships which are generally just for protecting the subsea location of a wellhead or similar from fishing nets etc.
Generally I don’t regard these as uglyships I would regard them as unique and rather pretty.
Well done to the designer for designer something different that works.
I do like the funnel arrangement up fwd just wished there more vessels built.
I think at the time they were classed as the most suffisticated vessels of here time and the first purpose built standby vessel for the UK Cont. shelf at a British yard with British crew.