Gennaker wind farm substations go in off the Darß peninsula
Two offshore substations for the Gennaker wind farm off the German Baltic coast, approved by the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in April, are due to be installed by the heavy lift vessel Pioneering Spirit.
Law NAMMERT Assekuradeur GmbH
Around 15 kilometres north of the Fischland-Darß-Zingst peninsula on Germany's Baltic coast, construction has moved offshore. The Dutch and Belgian consortium that builds the two substations, OSS Darß and OSS Zingst, has hired the Dutch offshore contractor Allseas to transport and install them together with their foundations. Allseas is using the Pioneering Spirit, a twin hulled heavy lift vessel 382 metres long and 124 metres wide.
The legal basis is a planning approval decision (Planfeststellungsbeschluss) of 17 April 2026, reference V-667-00000-2025/003, issued by the economy ministry of the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The developer is the German grid operator 50Hertz. The official notice places both platforms at the eastern and western edges of the safety zone of the already approved Gennaker wind farm, and the decision contains conditions on the safety and ease of shipping traffic.
What is new is not the plan but the work on the water. A stretch of open sea between Darßer Ort and the Kadet Channel will have a vessel the size of several football pitches and its support craft on it. How far vessels must keep clear is set by the German waterways and shipping administration in its notices to mariners.
For anyone sailing east or north this autumn from Rostock, Warnemünde or the lagoon harbours behind the peninsula, that means reading the current German notices to mariners and chart corrections for the area north of the Darß before leaving, and updating both plotter and paper chart. Older charts do not show the new structures.
What this means for owners
Entering a declared safety zone is exactly the kind of circumstance that is examined closely after a claim, because almost every marine contract expects the skipper to respect published navigation restrictions. A sensible question to put to your own insurer is how a loss inside a charted exclusion zone is treated, and whether it matters that entry was deliberate or accidental. This affects sailing yachts and motor yachts on the run between Warnemünde, Darßer Ort and Rügen, charter yachts from the Mecklenburg coast and trailer boats launched from the lagoon harbours. Keeping a note in the log that the notices were read and the chart corrected is the simplest way to show due care later.
Our view as NAMMERT, not part of the news. Your own policy wording decides.
Where this comes from
- Source: Ministerium für Wirtschaft, Infrastruktur, Tourismus und Arbeit Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Bekanntmachung zum Planfeststellungsbeschluss OST-6-1 Umspannplattformen vom 17.04.2026
- Source: MarineLink, 29.04.2024: Pioneering Spirit Booked for Gennaker Substation Installs
The text is our own; the sources supplied the facts and figures, not the wording.
