Proceedings of the Twenty-seventh (2017) International Ocean and Polar Engineering Conference www.isope.

org
San Francisco, CA, USA, June 25-30, 2017
Copyright 2017 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE)
ISBN 978-1-880653-97-5; ISSN 1098-6189

Weather Stand-by Assessment in Offshore Operations Using Motion Limit Criteria

Michele Drago, Andrea Del Guzzo, Luigino Vitali, Roberto Bruschi

Saipem SpA, Advanced Engineering Management
Fano (PU), Italy

ABSTRACT
Assessment of the expected stand-by in offshore operations is
performed by analysing the metocean conditions of the area and
comparing them with the operative limits defined by static and dynamic
installation analyses. Generally, seastate hindcast time series, nowadays
available for any area affected by Oil & Gas industry development
activities, are taken as a reference for the characterization of metocean
conditions. Operative limits are commonly defined in terms of
maximum allowable sea state, but recently operative limits in terms of
maximum allowable vessel motion are becoming more and more
popular. For oceanic areas where the seastates are composed of
different partitions, e.g. wind sea and swell, the most reliable method to
define operative limits is in terms of maximum allowable vessel
motions. In fact, very different vessel motion responses can be induced
by multicomponent seastates identified by the same overall synthetic
parameters, i.e. total significant wave height Hs, peak period Tp and
mean direction, but constituted by different single components.
When dealing with operations for which the limits are defined in terms
of maximum allowable vessel motions for a specific installation vessel,
the metocean conditions shall be transformed in the induced relevant
motion to be compared with the motion operative limit.
This paper presents a methodology to evaluate the operative weather
stand-by based on the motion limit approach and compares the results
with those obtained if a classical seastate limit approach were to be
applied.
KEY WORDS: Offshore operations, Weather stand-by, Motion limit,
RAOs, Crossed sea.
INTRODUCTION
Offshore operations and installations are randomly interrupted by
adverse metocean conditions which could put human safety or asset
integrity at risk. This is particularly true for many areas affected by the
Oil & Gas industry such as the North Sea, the Brazilian offshore or the
South China Sea, where severe metocean conditions could be
encountered even during the good season. In such areas, to achieve a
reliable cost estimation, a careful assessment of the expected weather
stand-by is fundamental for sound operations planning and for the
optimal installation vessel and offshore spread selection beginning from
the bidding and early engineering phases.
During the planning phase of offshore installation operations, one of
the main questions that arises concerns how much time will be lost
waiting on good weather conditions, possibly with different confidence
intervals. To perform this exercise, three different kinds of information
are necessary: 1) detailed operations schedule and procedures; 2) the
vessels operative limits for the relevant operation/sequence of
operations; 3) the expected metocean conditions for the area.
A reliable assessment of the expected weather stand-by that will be
presumably experienced during operations can be obtained only if
realistic limiting criteria, operations sequence and operations
interruption procedures assumed during the design are reasonably
representative of those that will be adopted once in the field.
Over the past few years, in the endeavour to reduce stand-by as much
as possible in order to obtain the beneficial effects in terms of
associated costs, more and more detailed criteria for defining the
operability limits have been developed. Weather stand-by assessment is
moving from a classical and more generic significant wave height limit
to a more vessel tailored motion limit based approach. This is possible
when a correlation is demonstrated between the considered motion and
the induced structural loads/responses for which an allowable
maximum for integrity assessment (real limit not to be exceeded) is
clearly identified. Fig. 1 shows an example for a pipe S-lay operation
where the correlation is between the pipe stress and the motion at the
stinger tip. As illustrated in Fig. 1, motion limiting criteria proved to
be very effective, as real sea conditions generally induce a different
motion on the vessel with respect to the one estimated during the design
for a theoretical seastate with the same significant wave height Hs, peak
period Tp and incoming direction. This is mainly due to the fact that the
description of the seastate used during the design phase to evaluate the
vessel motion very often scarcely represents the real one in terms of
directional spreading and spectral form (van Dijk, Quiniou-Ramus and
Le-Marechal, 2003). In particular, for areas where crossed sea is
dominant, motion limiting criteria generally facilitate the reduction of
the stand-by, as the limiting motion is more difficult to induce by real
seastate than by theoretical seastates with the same synthetic
parameters, i.e. Hs, Tp direction. In other words, for a certain Hs

494
exceeding the operative limit, i.e. an Hs for which the expected motion
calculated during the design exceeds the allowable one, the really
induced motion could be below the limit defined in terms of allowable
motion. In this case, besides being more efficient, the motion limits
represent the only valuable way to estimate the weather stand-by.
Fig. 1 Correlation between vessel motion, pipe stress and
theoretical/real seastate
OPERATIVE LIMITS DEFINITION
In this paper reference is made mainly to offshore pipeline installation
for assessment of the operative limits, but the same reasoning could be
applied with no loss of validity to any offshore operation (heavy lifts,
float-overs, jackets installation etc.). Operative limits can be defined in
terms of maximum allowable metocean conditions, generally
significant wave height Hs, eventually by Tp and direction, or in terms
of maximum allowable motion at a relevant location of the vessel
(DNV-GL, 2016).
Definition of the operative limits is the result of the installation
analyses performed in order to guarantee the structural integrity of the
pipeline and assets (Langner, 1984; Collberg et al., 2006; Torselletti et
al. 2006a; Torselletti et al. 2006b; DNV, 2013; API, 2015). In
particular, dynamic installation analyses are performed for many
different combinations of significant wave height, peak period and
relative to the vessels incoming direction, assuming more or less
accurate seastate spectral forms. Depending on the installation area, it is
a commonly accepted practice to describe the environment through
unidirectional sea states or to account in a simplified way for the spatial
distribution of the energy through a directional spreading distribution.
Furthermore, dynamic analysis can be performed using regular wave
theory with the maximum expected wave for a defined, generally
JONSWAP, spectral form (DNV 2013). Whichever is the selected
method, this directly leads to the definition of a limiting Hs for any
combination of peak period and direction. A graphical representation of
an example of Hs limits resulting from these analyses for a monohull
vessel S-laying operation is shown in Fig. 2.

In crossed sea conditions, a correct description of the encountered

environment cannot be achieved with a single set of synthetic
parameters Hs, Tp, direction and spreading, since the possible
combination of the components Hsi, Tpi, directioni, angular spreadingi
is potentially infinite. The effect is that, during the design stage, a
reliable or not too conservative definition of operative limits through
synthetic seastate parameters is not practicable. The definition of a
motion limit and the estimation/monitoring of the motion induced by
the really encountered conditions while in operations become more
suitable.
Nowadays, long hindcast time series of metocean conditions are
available for any offshore area (e.g. Sterl et al, 1998; Cox and Swail,
2001; Soares et al., 2002; Reistad et al., 2011) and can be considered
representative of the metocean conditions that can be encountered when Fig. 2 Limiting Hs for different peak period and incoming direction
performing the operations. Assuming that the hindcast time series is the relative to the vessel
occurrence experienced and measured by the vessel during the
installation, the assessment of the expected stand-by can be performed
realistically by simulating the operations sequence while encountering
the metocean conditions of the hindcast time history. Such hindcast
time series generally include both the total seastates and their partitions.
For a specific installation vessel, each seastate of time series,
considering the different partitions or the total seastate, can be
transformed using Response Amplitude Operators (RAOs) in maximum
vessel motion to be compared with the defined motion limit to state if,
for that condition, the vessel is operative or not. It should be noted that
the use of the total seastate, transformed in motion or directly compared
to Hs limit, is equivalent to the use of a seastate limit. Hence, by
analysing the weather stand-by using both the total seastate and the
combined effects of the seastate partitions, an assessment of the
performance of the two criteria can be made. Stepping along the time
series, the operations progress and the cumulated weather stand-by can
be defined for any sequence of operations starting at any period of the
year. Repeated for each year of the time series, this procedure consents
statistical assessment of the weather stand-by with a different
occurrence probability (Drago and Venturi, 2011). Fig. 3 Motion limit definition case of two combined motions

495
The motion limit definition, on the other hand, is performed by = +
identifying a limiting motion (displacement, velocity or acceleration) = + (1)
referred to a relevant point on the vessel for which one of the = +
installation criteria has been overrun. As an example, assuming that the
lateral and vertical accelerations (respectively al and av) are the relevant where , , are the rotation angles around the three coordinate
motion parameter for a structure during transportation, the limiting
axes. Therefore, given the motion RAOs at the CoG defined as
conditions are identified by running a motion analysis for all the events
in the time series and identifying the area in the av and al plane for ( )
which the structural integrity has been exceeded. As final result, = ( , ) (2)
correlation between vessel motion and operability is identified (Fig. 3).
It should be noted that all the tested seastate cases are plotted together, the motion, velocity and acceleration RAOs at the abc point can be
independently of their incoming direction, peak period and significant calculated as
wave height. In this way any dependence on the loading force is lost
( , ) ( )
and the used information is solely the response to the loading, i.e. the = (3)
vessel motion. Green dots represent cases for which the integrity = ( , ) ( )
(4)
criteria have been respected, and red dots those for which criteria have
been exceeded. It is evident that, apart a small superposition area, green = ( , ) ( )
= , , (5)
dots and red dots occupy different areas of the horizontal and vertical
acceleration plane. A perfect separation would mean an exact
correlation which is not the case in most occasions. The superposition
area is most probably due to other motions/effects that have not been
considered and that, if the area is relatively small, can be considered
second order effects. This allows the tracing of a limiting curve,
conservatively defined in order to exclude any red dots, which
separates operative from not operative cases in terms of limiting the
combination of motions.
The scope of the analyses is precisely to find a plane of motions where
the allowable and not allowable cases are found to be reasonably
separated with a not too large superposition area, which would mean a
loss of efficiency, in the case where all red dots are excluded, or safety,
where a balanced curve in the middle of the superposition area is
traced.
As the limit definition is not the main subject, in the rest of this paper
the considered motion limit will be more simply identified only with
the maximum vertical (heave) acceleration at a location that can be Fig. 4 Vertical acceleration RAOs at the Jay Lay Tower hinge
realistically identified with the stinger tip for an S-laying and with the
tower hinge for a J-laying. At any rate, whatever the location and the Let us assume that for a hypothetic J-lay vessel the relevant operative
relevant motion/combination of motions, once the operative limit is limiting motion is the vertical (heave) acceleration at the Jay Lay
defined the procedure herein described can be applied without Tower (JLT) hinge and that the resulting RAOs for this motion are
modification and with no loss of generality. Z (, ) (see Fig. 4).
The advantage of the definition of the motion limit is that any For any seastate spectrum S (, ) impacting the vessel, the resulting
dependence on the kind of loading causing it is lost and the criterion vertical acceleration spectrum and the significant vertical acceleration
has a general validity regardless of the loading force causing it. Hence are given by
the problem of correctly representing the seastate spectral form during
the design becomes irrelevant. ( , )= ( , ) ( , ) (6)
VESSEL MOTION ASSESSMENT =2 ( , ) =2 . (7)

Once the operative limit has been defined, it is necessary to establish a

methodology to calculate how the vessel responds to the load of any As the motion limit is generally defined in terms of maximum motion,
possible seastate (monodirectional or multicomponent) that will be the expected (mean) or the most probable maximum motion associated
encountered in the hindcast time series. This will be the input for the with the resulting spectrum can be calculated for an N hours (N*3600
weather stand-by assessment analysis to identify if and when the sec) seastate duration according to Rayleigh statistics. The following
operative limit has been exceeded. Calculation can be performed in formulae, accounting also for the spectrum band width effect
frequency domain through Response Amplitude Operators (RAOs) (Bhattacharyya, 1978), are applied respectively:
which are characteristic of each vessel. The RAOs are transfer
functions defined for the 6 Degrees Of Freedom (DOF) (3 translational .
Z , = Z ln + CF (8)
and 3 rotational) providing the vessel motion induced by a regular wave
of 1 m amplitude for each frequency and relative wave direction.
Generally, RAOs are provided to the vessel Centre of Gravity (CoG) Z , = Z ln CF (9)
but can be transferred to any point of the vessel under the hypothesis of
rigid body motion without inducing any unacceptable approximation. where the zero up-crossing period and the band width correction
For an abc point with coordinates a, b, c with respect to CoG the factor , being the spectrum broadness parameter and the even
translation is defined by moments of the spectrum, are calculated as

496
 = , (10) = ( , ) ( , )
= 1 , (11) + ( , ) ( , )
= , (12) = + . (15)
= ( , ) . (13)
As the moments are proportional to the square of the Hs, the ,
and spectral moments can be calculated for seastates with Hs=1 m
for all the directions and suitable ranges of Tp (e.g. 4s to 20s) and peak
WEATHER STAND-BY ASSESSMENT PROCEDURE
enhancement factors (1 to 10) of the JONSWAP spectrum. The
calculation for a different peak enhancement factor is due to the fact
Once the operative limits and relevant motion RAOs have been
that, according to classical JONSWAP spectrum formulation (DNV,
defined, weather stand-by assessment can be performed. Using an
2014), it is function of the Hs to Tp relationship for wind sea
overall seastate climate, the expected (average) weather stand-by can be
obtained. Conversely, using hindcast time series, a step by step
simulation of the history of the operation for each year of the time 3.6 = 5
series can be carried out, providing an average value but also the 3.6 5 = 5.75 1.15 , (16)
possible spread around the average which can be summarised in a
5 = 1
standard deviation or expressed in percentiles (Drago and Venturi,
2011). Moreover, the use of the time history allows a more realistic
assessment of real operation conditions, such as delays before and after and it is a large value for swell waves. Hence, depending on the kind of
pipe abandonment due to pipe lowering and recovery. seastate and on the Hs to Tp relationship, different peak enhancement
In more detail, for each time step of the time series it is verified factors shall be considered. The effect of the use of different peak
whether the seastate condition generates an operative/not operative enhancement factors on the spectral form is shown in Fig. 5.
motion, i.e. exceeding or not the operative limit. To comply with the
real laying operation procedure, interruption of operations occurs in
advance of the instant when motion limit of the time necessary to
abandon the pipe in safe condition is exceeded. Similarly, when
operative conditions are recovered after an abandonment, a delay in the
operation reinstatement is considered to take into account the time
necessary for pipe recovery. This is repeated for each time step up to
completion of the operation. The procedure is repeated for all the
available years of the hindcast time series in order to have a statistic of
the expected stand-by (average, standard deviation, percentiles etc.).
Different levels of information, when available, can be used from the
hindcast time series to estimate the motion: total seastate (Hs, Tp),
seastate components (Hsi, Tpi), full 2D spectrum. Total seastate is
always available, but its use is equivalent to that of an Hs limiting Fig. 5 Effect of different peak enhancement factors on the spectral
criterion. The use of seastate partitions does not give the full form (from DNV, 2014).
information but provides a more realistic description of the
environment. The full 2D spectrum, when available, is more complete
information but would require the calculation of eqs. 6 - 13 for each
time step of the time series. In this paper, the approach based on
seastate partitions is proposed, both to reduce calculations and to have a
methodology for cases when full 2D spectrum is not available. But in
principle there is no limitation to its use.
For a seastate described in terms of synthetic parameters, either total
seastate or seastate components, it is necessary to assume a spectral
form. In this case a JONSWAP spectrum has been assumed both for the
total seastate and for the single seastate partitions.
For any seastate spectrum described by the sum of two partitions for
wind sea and swell

( , )= ( , ) + ( , ) , (14)
Fig. 6 Effect of different peak enhancement factors on the maximum
the resulting moments of the vertical acceleration spectrum, as
motion for Hs =1 m and different Tp (incoming direction 75)
demonstrated by eq. 15, are the sum of the moments of the spectrum of
each partition, i.e.
The vessel response is rather sensitive to the use of different peak
enhancement factors, both increasing or decreasing the resulting
= ( , ) = motion, depending on whether the energy is concentrated toward a
frequency of larger or lower values of the RAOs. This is shown in Fig.
6 where the resulting maximum accelerations for a Hs = 1 m seastate
= ( ( , ) + ( , ) ) =
incoming from 75 relative to the vessel for different Tp and different
peak enhancement factor are shown. This results in a series of tables of

497
spectral moment values, bivariate in Tp and direction for the different
selected peak enhancement factors and for the different moment
order.
For any possible combination of wind sea and swell occurring in the
hindcast time series, it is sufficient to select for each component the
right tables and to multiply the selected moment value for the square of
the Hs of the partition and to sum the moments to have the moments of
the resulting spectrum of the vertical acceleration:

, = , ( ) , + , ( ) , . (17)

The right tables are selected according to the peak enhancement factor
resulting for the considered component; the right moment value inside
the table is selected according to the actual Tp and relative to vessel
direction. Then, according to the above Eqs. 7~12, the maximum
expected vertical acceleration in three hours can be obtained for any Fig. 8 South Atlantic location considered for the test case
seastate of the hindcast time series for comparison with the defined
10
operative limits. HS tot
9
HSsea
Fig. 7 shows a scheme of the conceptual difference in the use of the 8
HSSwell
total seastate and of the seastate components. To facilitate the visual 7
6
representation, in Fig. 7 a single already calculated maximum

Hs (m)
5
acceleration motion table is used for total sea and for the partitions, 4

where a constant factor between significant motion and extreme motion 3

2
of 1.876 and a constant peak enhancement factor of 3.3 have been 1
assumed for simplicity. In reality, the complete procedure implies the 0
1 5001 10001 15001 20001 25001 30001 35001 40001 45001 50001 55001
selection of different tables of motions correlated to the relevant peak Hours (x3)
enhancement factors for total sea, wind sea and swell and their use for
Fig. 9 Total seastate and seastate components Hs time series
the calculation of the maximum motion. At any rate, the concept of the
procedure described above still remains valid. The use of the total 25
HSSwell
seastate for calculating the vessel motion is practically equivalent to the HSsea
use of a limit criterion based on the Hs, while the use of the wind sea 20

and swell partitions results in a more realistic motion for the same total 15
Tp (s)

Hs. For a reliable estimation during the design of the weather stand-by
that will be experienced once in the field, the same criterion that will 10

actually be used during operation execution shall be selected. 5

0
1 5001 10001 15001 20001 25001 30001 35001 40001 45001 50001 55001
Hours (x3)
Fig. 10 Seastate components peak period Tp time series

Fig. 11 Seastate components mean direction (to which) time series

Fig. 7 Weather stand-by assessment procedure for total seastate vs.
seastate partitions
TEST CASE METOCEAN CONDITIONS
In the present paper, the 30 years (1990-2009) BOMOSHU hindcasting
(Oceanweather, 2015) for the Western South Atlantic has been
considered. In particular, the point with Latitude 25.500S, Longitude
42.875W has been selected (see Fig. 8).
The hindcast time series includes the synthetic parameters of the total
seastate and of the wind sea and swell partitions. Fig. 9 shows the time
series of the total seastate Hs and of the wind-sea and swell components
and clearly demonstrates how the area is generally affected
simultaneously by two components having about the same magnitude,
occasionally one prevailing over the other.
Fig. 10 and Fig. 11 show how much different the wind-sea and swell
components are in terms of peak period and directions. The average
peak period of swell is around 12s with maxima around 20s and the
average of wind sea is around 5s with maxima around 12s. The
direction of the swell is essentially north-westerly while wind sea also
has a largely south-easterly direction. It appears evident that the

498
description of the seastate with a single set of synthetic parameters of about 30 (or more) days for worse months and headings, i.e. a stand-by
total seastate cannot correctly represent the real conditions. How and to of the same order of the nominal duration of the operation itself.
what extent the use of the total seastate instead of the partitions will It can be observed that the total sea approach always overestimates the
influence the weather stand-by assessment results will be shown below. weather stand-by by an amount of between 50% and 100%, depending
Fig. 12 shows a characterization of the wave climate of the selected on simulation month and vessel heading. In terms of absolute
location in terms of the polar frequency diagram of Hs and of the Hs- difference, the difference ranges from a few days to about 10-15 days
Tp scatter diagram of the total seastate. It is possible to observe that respectively for the shorter stand-by and the longer stand-by.
most of the Hs are in the 2 m to 3 m range, which is around the Hs The vessel directions most affected by weather stand-by are those that
operative limits for the assumed installation monohull vessel (e.g. see are N-S and NW-SE oriented, as they are more exposed to the beam
Fig. 2). Hence, for this particular case, it is to be expected that any and quartering sea which are those inducing larger vessel motions.
improvement in the limiting criterion will result in a significant The results show also how useful similar analyses can be for
difference in the weather stand-by assessment. identifying the impact on the costs and duration of different operation
periods and installation directions/headings, thereby assisting in the
planning of operations and in cost estimation during the bid phase of a
project.
In this respect, other useful data deriving from the applied methodology
for the weather stand-by assessment of simulation of operations during
the various years of the hindcast time series is that the probabilistic
distribution of the weather stand-by is also available. Fig. 13 shows the
expected (mean) values, but, depending on the severity of the climate in
the actual installation season, whose possible variability is reasonably
represented in the hindcast time series, the weather stand-by could have
a certain variability around this value.
This information is very valuable for risk, opportunity and contingency
analyses. As an example, Tab.1 and Fig. 14 show, for the vessel
heading 270N in the month of August, respectively the year by year
results and the percentiles (interpolation of yearly results) of the
Hs (m) obtained weather stand-by distribution. The information obtained
Tp (s) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 indicates that there is a 20% probability of having a weather stand-by
2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
lower than 10 days (20% percentile) and larger than 20 days (80%
6 0 1.42 0.25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 percentile), i.e. about 5 days respectively less and more than the
8 0.06 19.41 13.66 1.17 0 0 0 0 0 0
10 0.01 20.47 13.3 3.38 0.41 0.02 0 0 0 0
expected value of about 15 days, increasing to about 9 if a 10%
12 0 4.28 8.83 1.49 0.3 0.12 0.04 0 0 0 probability is considered (7 days and 24 days for 10% and 90%
14 0 0.99 4.71 1.85 0.24 0.08 0.03 0.01 0.01 0
16 0 0.27 1.22 1.04 0.36 0.09 0.03 0.01 0.01 0
percentiles). Additional relevant information obtained from the
18 0 0.08 0.12 0.07 0.07 0.03 0 0 0 0 operation simulation is the number of operation interruptions that can
20 0 0.02 0.02 0.01 0 0 0 0 0 0 be expected (last column of Tab. 1).
22 0 0.01 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
24 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Finally, it is worth mentioning that, when recalling that the total sea
26 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 approach is fully equivalent to the case of operative limit definition in
28 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
30 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 terms of Hs, the comparison provides an estimate a) of the error that
Fig. 12 Hs-direction (to which) polar plot and Hs-Tp percentage would be committed by performing weather stand-by assessment using
scatter diagram for the considered Brazilian offshore location a Hs limit criterion while a motion limit criterion would be adopted for
real operations, and b) of the unnecessary stand-by if operative limits
were defined in terms of Hs during the design phase, forcibly using a
TEST CASE - RESULTS single partition seastate, and applied during operations.

The test case considered is the simulation of a J-lay operation with
nominal duration, i.e. without weather stand-by, of 30 days. For the
installation, a monohull pipelaying vessel is considered.
Moment tables for different peak enhancement factors ranging from 1
to 10 have been calculated. The table to be considered for each Hs/Tp
couple of the hindcast time series has been selected by calculating the
actual peak enhancement factor according to the relationship
defined for the JONSWAP spectrum (DNV, 2014) for total sea and
wind sea and adopting a large value (6 to 10) for swell sea.
The simulations were performed for 8 different headings of the vessel,
45 equally spaced, and for different starting dates, the beginning of
each month. Delays of 9 hours both before and after interruptions were
considered for abandonment and recovery procedures. A motion limit
of maximum vertical acceleration at the JLT hinge of 1.5 m/s2 was
assumed.
Fig. 13 shows the comparison of the weather stand-by predicted using
the total sea/Hs limit approach and the sea partitions/motion limits
approach. In general, the weather stand-by for the 30 days operation
goes from a few days for the better months and vessel headings to
CONCLUSION
Offshore operations operative limits can be defined in terms of
maximum allowable seastate significant wave height Hs, eventually by
peak period and relative to the vessel direction, or in terms of
maximum allowable vessel motion at a certain vessel location. The
definition of the maximum allowable Hs implies assuming an
associated spectral form. Seastate limits and motion limits are
equivalent only if the spectral form associated to the seastate is
representative of the real conditions encountered in the operations area.
Differently, seastates with the same Hs will give rise to motions
significantly different from those defined during the design. This leads
to the fact that for areas where spectral form cannot be predicted, or are
poorly represented by a single peak spectrum, e.g. any area where wind
sea and swell components are always or very often present, operative
limits cannot be realistically defined in terms of Hs but only in terms of
motion. In the event that limiting Hs criterion is selected, a significant
increase in the expected weather stand-by would result with associated
relevant impact in terms of operational costs and schedule.

499
 Fig. 13 Comparison of weather stand-by results by direction/starting
date for total sea and sea components approaches

500
 not during installation, an assessment of the weather stand-by based on
Tab. 1 Results of simulations for each year of the time series Hs limit criterion during planning phase could lead to an overestimation
Year Operation Stand-byT N.stand-byT of the weather stand-by that could be of the order of the duration of the
(Days) (Days) (-) operation itself, with a potential increase in estimated costs.
1990 37.13 7.13 4 Therefore, since the weather stand-by generally has a relevant impact
1991 37.25 7.25 5
on the successful execution of an installation project in terms of cost
1992 47.25 17.25 9
1993 35.88 5.88 5
and schedule, it is necessary from as early as the bid phase and/or early
1994 41.25 11.25 6 design phase to decide consciously upon the weather limiting criterion
1995 38.25 8.25 6 strategy. For the purposes of consistency, the same approach should be
1996 45.75 15.75 7 followed during both design and project execution phases.
1997 50.13 20.13 10
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project execution a certain amount of unnecessary stand-by, that could van Dijk R.T, Quiniou-Ramus V, Le-Marechal G. (2003): Comparison
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on operation period and vessel exposure to dominant climate it can be a West of Africa FPSO., Proc 22nd Int Conf on Offshore Mechanics
rather large. and Arctic Engineering, Volume 1 Offshore Technology; Ocean Space
b) if a motion limit criterion is applied to decide whether to abandon or Utilization pp:335-339, Cancun, Mexico OMAE 2003-37182.

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