In early November, the anchors and corner buoys for the seaweed farm at Kriegers Flak were deployed – despite autumn rain, wind and waves.

A team from the Danish Technical University (DTU), Carapax, Kerteminde Seafarm and Aarhus University (AU) boarded the vessel, Søløven, in Køge Harbour Tuesday in week 44. Four large yellow corner buoys with each a three-ton concrete anchor block, two smaller side marker buoys, a six-meter-tall drill rig and iron drill anchors with discs of three dimensions, were loaded onto the vessel. And while it kept on raining and the wind kept blowing, the team optimised the hydraulics system for the drill rig, in order to drill the iron anchors 3 m into the seabed. Wednesday morning at sunrise, the Søløven arrived at position at Kriegers Flak, and in calm, sunny weather with hardly any waves, the four large corner buoys were deployed. The drill rig was assembled, and the first iron anchor drilled into the seabed. Unfortunately, with wind and waves picking up during the day, it became impossible to drill in the remaining four anchors. As best alternative, three-ton concrete anchors were instead deployed by the Søløven crew, Friday, utilising a suitable weather window.

Next step will be for Kerteminde Seafarm to assemble the four longlines of each a 100 m between the anchors, as soon as weather permits. Then the farm structure is ready for Kerteminde Seafarm, AU and DTU to deploy the seaweed lines seeded with three species of seaweed: Sugar kelp (Saccharina latissima), sea lettuce (Ulva) and dulse (Palmaria palmata).

The vessel is loaded with yellow buoys and heavy anchor blocks

Toolbox meeting before the drill work begins

Assembling the drill rig

Lowering the drill ring from the vessel

First (and only) drill anchor is in place. In the background, one of the four large yellow corner buoys.

The first large yellow corner buoy is laid out from Søløven