Dispute Resolution

Dynamically Positioned Pipelaying Ship “Solitaire”

Contact: James Crawford

Type of Project

Expert Witness
Marine Engineering

Outline of Project

The “Solitaire” is the largest dynamically positioned pipelay ship in the world and is owned by Allseas of Holland. It started life as a bulk carrier and was contracted to be converted to a pipelay ship by Sembawang Corporation Limited of Singapore before being taken to Swan Hunter Shipbuilders Ltd of Tyneside for ultimate completion.

It took nearly 10 years to settle issues concerning the work done by Sembawang and Swan Hunter and a final settlement was reached in 2005.

Allseas had claims against Sembawang and vice versa. These claims were variously in the nature of design defects leading to installation defects, remedial work etc. and considerable delays. They were pursued whilst the ship was in use. The ensuing arbitration was over a sum of $460M.

Cadogan assisted the team lead by Denton Wilde Sapte and examined the electrical, instrumentation and fire protection aspects of the Design Errors and ensuing unsuitable work.

The task included critical examination of the original specifications given to Sembawang by Allseas and the design errors in the Sembawang work.   Much of the subject matter was inter-related. For example the use of a water deluge system for engine room fire extinguishing was appropriate for the Certifying Authorities but was not compatible with the IP rating of switchgear contained within the same engine  rooms. There were many instances of electrical and instrumentation drawings not reflecting the design and specification intent. For example numbering of motors wrongly on the drawings resulted in twin star drives when a star and delta design was intended to reduce third harmonic. There were many instances of pipework conflicting with the layout of the electrics.

Cadogan provided written material in support of the case for Allseas and worked with the Allseas staff in articulating the defects, their consequential effects and also in quantifying the effects of faults.

Cadogan had started work on defending a counterclaim by Sembawang against Allseas when the settlement was reached.