7. Low Cost Flat Plate Spar Hulls Can Support Floating Wind Turbines, Power Hubs, Oil Platforms, Etc.

MEC's Spar hulls use:

• flat plate steel construction only needs a few automatic welding machine operators on panel lines making it the lowest cost form of hull construction.
• the illustration shows a MEC Spar with a near-surface counterweight for vessel stability and near-seabed counterweight for holding position and reducing vessel motion. The near-seabed counterweight  dampens vessel  motion and has
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Marine Energy Corporation’s flat plate spars, illustrated to the right, use a spread mooring and vertical mooring for station keeping. The vertical  mooring can also optionally help dampen both vertical and lateral vessel motion.

Marine Energy Corporation’s flat plate spar, as illustrated to the right, can be used for power hubs, desalination plants, offshore accommodation, offshore oil platforms, etc.

4-sided flat plate spar hulls and their counterweights can also be used to support for floating wind turbines. 

Their compact hulls allow compact transport as tandem tows and on heavy lift vessels.

Low cost pipe quarter sections used for rounded corners provide good fatigue lives and good hydrodynamics. 

Spar hulls with over 4 flat sides can be used to support floating wind turbines. 

8-sided hulls, for example have will have improved hydrodynamics over 4 sided hulls.  

Variations in hull draft, counterweight draft and outside dimensions will help the spar hull designs achieve improve vessel motions and buoyancy requirements.

Marine Energy Corporation’s 4-sided flat plate spar hull is illustrated with a 4-sided flat plate counterweight and used for floating wind turbines. 

The Illustration to the right shows the counterweight deballasted and secured to the bottom of the hull.

The counterweight support column is shown extended above the top of hull. 

It shows Yokohama type fenders attached to the hull for transportation wi