This paper describes two new modular ship design activities for graduate education at Delft University of Technology that have been developed during COVID. First, a new 2-hour hybrid format (in-person and virtual participation) game was designed to teach students modular design for offshore support vessels (OSVs). Second, an 8-week MSc-level ship design project was redeveloped to cover the design of a small fleet of modular OSVs for offshore wind. The paper discusses the drivers behind these new design educational activities, the details of the activities themselves, and concludes with lessons learned focused on improving graduate education for masters students studying ship design.

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Service Operation Vessels (SOVs) are purpose-built maintenance vessels that provide high accessibility to far-offshore wind turbines, but they lack multitasking capabilities. Its daughter craft (DC) is a valu-able asset for unplanned maintenance in the summer when it can operate safely, but it is often not deployable during rough weather conditions. The main research question is: What are the deficiencies of current DCs, and how can these access vessels be modified to operate year-round at far-offshore wind farms? The results show that the current DC’s deficiencies lie in its current operational require-ments. Also, performance in oblique waves is currently riskiest since that is when there are higher vertical accelerations or a combination of vertical and lateral accelerations. Furthermore, wave steep-ness has significantly more effect on accelerations than wave height. Lastly, future DC designs should be focussed on stable seakeeping performance during transfers rather than high-speed transit. An anal-ysis into the seakeeping performance of four prototypes showed that it is feasible to increase the transfer requirement from Hs ≤ 1.5 m to 2.0 m ≤ Hs ≤ 2.5 m. The catamaran type DCs have a high potential to realise year-round accessibility to far-offshore wind farms due to their resulting performance in oblique wave conditions.@en