Kongsberg Maritime wins design and systems contract for four IWS Skywalker Class CSOVs

Kongsberg Maritime has secured a contract with IWS Fleet AS, a subsidiary of Integrated Wind Solutions (IWS), to provide vessel design and integrated technology systems for four new Skywalker Class commissioning service operation vessels (CSOVs)^[1]. The newbuilds are based on the company's latest UT 5519 DEx design and will be built by Nantong Rainbow Offshore & Engineering Equipment, with first delivery scheduled for 2029^[1].

The vessel order in context

IWS Fleet placed the underlying shipbuilding contracts on 30 September 2026, at a combined firm yard price of approximately $301 million (€260 million) - roughly $75 million per hull. The four vessels will expand IWS Fleet's owned fleet from six to ten CSOVs, and the order also carries options for a further four vessels at the same fixed prices, with deliveries in 2030 and 2031, subject to foreign-exchange and sub-supplier adjustments.

IWS holds approximately 75% of IWS Fleet; Japan's Sumitomo Corporation owns the remainder after investing €60 million in the business in 2024. IWS plans to fund the programme through operating cash flow and additional debt, without raising new equity, while maintaining its ordinary quarterly dividend.

What Kongsberg Maritime is supplying

Kongsberg Maritime's scope on each vessel covers:

• Electrical power systems
• Navigation and bridge systems
• Propulsion and deck machinery
• Dynamic positioning systems
• Overall system integration

Each vessel will feature a double-ended hull with four rim-drive azimuth thrusters - two forward, two aft - using permanent magnet motor technology. The arrangement gives fully symmetrical propulsion fore and aft, which Kongsberg says enables efficient maneuvering between turbines and precise station-keeping under dynamic positioning.

The UT 5519 DEx is an evolution of the UT 5519 DE design used on the first six Skywalker Class ships. Those six vessels have all been delivered since 2023, and IWS Seawalker - the third in the series - won the 2025 Offshore Energy Vessel of the Year award at the Annual Offshore Support Journal Conference in London. MacGregor Norway will supply three-dimensional motion-compensated cranes and Horizon gangway systems for the four newbuilds, an order booked into MacGregor's fourth-quarter 2026 intake.

Walk-to-work role

Each CSOV will accommodate up to 120 personnel in onboard living quarters, functioning as a walk-to-work platform that allows technicians to remain offshore for extended periods during commissioning, operation, and maintenance campaigns. The double-ended configuration is designed to reduce transit time between turbines within a wind farm - a key productivity metric as farms grow larger and turbines are spaced further apart.

Per Ståle Nykrem, Kongsberg Maritime's director of ship design sales, said the first six vessels had "established a strong operational track record" and that the UT 5519 DEx builds on that experience "with further advances in efficiency, sustainability and performance."^[1]

What to watch

IWS Fleet reported contracted utilisation of 94% for the final three quarters of 2026, including options, after adding roughly 120 charter days and €6 million to its backlog in June. The pace at which the four new hulls attract long-term charters - and whether IWS exercises the options for vessels nine through twelve - will be the clearest signal of how tightly the CSOV market is running as the European offshore wind build-out accelerates into the late 2020s.