Rig to drill at Holmsgarth

The highlight of the week at Lerwick Harbour was the arrival on Tuesday of a jack-up drilling rig, Barge-Arun 120.

The 19-metre rig had previously been at Dales Voe and has this week been drilling test bores at Holmsgarth.

Harbourmaster Calum Grains said it was in preparation for the building of a “new structure” ad­jac­ent to the existing Holmsgarth jetty.

The test bores will provide information about the rock quality and depth of the seabed before solid rock is reached, prior to building a new quay. The results of the bores will determine its design and development.

The rig will be at several locations in the harbour over the coming weeks. It arrived in modular form on board the Streamline vessel Daroja, which Capt Grains said made it more mobile than if it had had to be towed.

Otherwise it has been a week of firsts, with the appearance of the season’s first cruise ship Discovery on Friday, which sailed for Scrabster after a seven-hour visit, and the first yacht, the Norwegian-registered Nangilima, on Tuesday.

The rest of the traffic comprised regular visitors.  The live fish carriers Ronja Settler and Viktoria Viking brought cargoes of salmon and smolts to Lerwick, the fishery protection vessel Hirta made a brief visit and the tanker Norden brought a cargo of oil from Gothenburg on Saturday.

The oil-related traffic came mostly from the East Shetland Basin in the North Sea and has all been at the Greenhead Base. The supply vessels Normand Installer, Toisa Intrepid and Vos Valiant arrived on Thursday, Friday and Saturday respectively, and the Highland Laird early this week.

The large 151-metre pipe-layer Calamity Jane arrived from Falmouth on Monday and sailed on Tuesday.
The standby vessels Grampian Confidence, Grampian Contender and Grampian Otter have also all been in Lerwick this week.

One pelagic boat, the Charisma, was at Holmsgarth and the harbour boat Knab has been making trips to the tanker Torill Knutsen, south of the harbour limits.