The Île de Molène (pictured), which will fly under the French flag, will be assigned to the maintenance of ASN customers’ submarine telecoms cables.
It will enter service at the end of June, following a ceremony in Calais with Alain Biston, president of ASN, and Natacha Bouchart, mayor of Calais and VP of the Hauts-de-France region.
The Île de Molène is named after an island off the coast of Brittany, as are ASN’s six other installation and maintenance vessels.
According to Marinetraffic.com the ship was built in 2006. ASN acquired it in May 2021 and an installation vessel, the Île d’Yeu, in June 2021. Both are operated by Louis Dreyfus Armateurs.
ASN said that “major engineering and upgrading programs have been carried out on this vessel to enable it to best meet its future maintenance missions and the various needs of ASN’s customers”.
The ship has just returned from fitting out in Gdansk in Poland. Its carrying capacity is 4,312 tonnes, with a draught of 6.2m. The overall length is 93.45m.
The other acquisition, the Île d’Yeu, is expected to join ASN’s installation fleet at the end of 2022, the company said last year, and will be immediately assigned to the installation of a transoceanic telecommunication system.
