Solitaire is a large deep-sea pipe laying ship. It was at the time of conversion the world's largest pipe-laying ship at 300m (1,000feet) long (excluding pipe-laying apparatus)[1] and .[2] When fully operational she has a crew of 420,[2] a pipe carrying capacity of 22,000 tonnes and a pipe lay speed of more than a day.[3] The ship is owned by the Allseas Group, a Dutch pipelaying and marine construction firm with their headquarters in Switzerland.[4]
The ship was initially built in 1972 as a bulk carrier and launched as Trentwood by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries at their shipyard in Hiroshima, Japan.[5]
In 1992, Allseas acquired Trentwood for conversion into a pipelaying vessel. Allseas awarded the conversion contract to Sembawang Shipyards in Singapore on a lump sum basis; however, the contract was terminated in 1995. The ship was subsequently converted at the Swan Hunter yard on Tyneside, United Kingdom.[6] Solitaire laid her first pipe on Statoil's Europipe project in 1999.[7]
Allseas and Sembcorp reached a settlement for the Solitaire arbitration in 2006.[8]
In 2006, while working on the Atwater Valley and Independence Trail projects in the Gulf of Mexico, Solitaire set new depth records, laying 10-inch pipeline in a water depth of and 24-inch pipeline in a water depth of .[9]
Among other ships, Solitaire laid the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea in 2019—2020.[10]