Seaway7's Alfa Lift completes all 54 transition pieces at Inch Cape, clearing the way for jacket foundations

Seaway7's heavy crane vessel Seaway Alfa Lift has finished installing all 54 monopile transition pieces at the 1.1 GW Inch Cape offshore wind farm in the Scottish North Sea^[1], the project confirmed in August 2026. The completion follows Jan De Nul's Les Alizés wrapping up the installation of all 54 monopiles in June 2026, meaning every monopile foundation is now topped and ready for the turbines that follow^[1].

What Alfa Lift did at Inch Cape

Seaway Alfa Lift is a semi-submersible heavy lift crane vessel equipped with a 3,000-tonne crane and more than 8,000 square metres of main deck space, capable of carrying up to 44,000 tonnes of cargo per voyage. The vessel arrived at the Inch Cape site around 17 March 2026, carrying the first batch of transition pieces from the Port of Leith. Installation work continued for several months, according to Notices to Mariners issued by the project.

The Alfa Lift's scope at Inch Cape is not limited to the transition pieces. The vessel is also responsible for installing Inch Cape's 18 jacket foundations, which are the next major offshore task. Next in terms of offshore construction will be the start of array cable installation and the installation of the pin piles, followed by the jacket foundations themselves.

The foundation picture

Inch Cape will use a combination of 54 monopile and 18 jacket foundations, in water depths ranging from 34 to 64 metres. The first XXL monopiles arrived at the Port of Leith in October 2025, the first transition pieces in January 2026, and the first jacket foundations in March 2026.

The project's foundation supply chain drew on multiple fabricators:

• COOEC-Fluor Heavy Industries (CFHI) was contracted to deliver all 18 jacket foundations as well as 24 monopile transition pieces.
• China's CNOOD-Wenchong Heavy Industries (CWHI) shipped the final eight XXL monopiles in December 2025, completing delivery of all 32 monopiles it was contracted for.
• The offshore substation topside - a Siemens Energy Offshore Transformer Module - and its jacket foundation were fabricated at Smulders' yard in Wallsend, near Newcastle, and installed by Heerema Marine Contractors using the semi-submersible crane vessel Sleipnir in August 2025.

Project context

Seaway7, part of the Subsea7 Group, was awarded the foundation transport and installation contract by Inch Cape Offshore Limited (ICOL), a joint venture between ESB and Red Rock Renewables. The deal is worth between $150 million and $300 million.

Inch Cape achieved financial close in January 2025, securing a £3.5 billion financing package from shareholders and 22 lenders. The project will be the first in the UK to use Vestas V236-15.0 MW turbines. In September 2024, the project was awarded an additional contract for difference in the UK government's latest allocation round for 266 MW.

Inch Cape is expected to generate more than five terawatt-hours per year of renewable energy, sufficient to supply more than half the homes in Scotland, and to offset up to 2.5 million tonnes per annum of carbon emissions once operational. The project alone represents 10% of the Scottish Government's target to install 11 GW of offshore wind by 2030.

What comes next

The first wind turbine generators will be installed later in 2026, from the marshalling port in Dundee. First power from the project is expected in late 2026, with commercial operations expected to begin in 2027.

The Alfa Lift's pivot to jacket foundation installation is the critical path item to watch. The 18 jacket structures sit in the deepest parts of the site - up to 64 metres - and their installation, along with the pin-pile driving that precedes it, will determine whether turbine installation stays on the late-2026 schedule.