The founder of the Allseas Group, Edward Heerema, is handing over control of the business after leading the offshore contractor for 37 years.
Heerema will hand over duties to his eldest son Pieter but will continue to work as chairman developing new technologies, the Swiss company said.
Under Heerema’s leadership, Allseas launched the world’s largest construction vessel, the 403,300-gt single-lift crane ship Pioneering Spirit (built 2015).
“Founding and building Allseas took an enormous amount of creativity, energy and perseverance,” said Heerema. “My ideas were sometimes doubted, but I was always determined to succeed.”
The company said that Heerema also developed new techniques in subsea pipelaying. One of the company’s ships set a record in 2007 for ultra-deepwater pipeline installation at a depth of 2,775m, it said.
His son, who joined the company in 2011, said: “He made Allseas great by pioneering ideas and making them work.”
The construction of the Pioneering Spirit was described as the realisation of a lifetime vision for Heerema.
It was dogged by setbacks including Allseas being hit by a $100m fraud in 2011. Heerema stepped down as president in the week that a French banker became the third man to be jailed over the complex fraud and money-laundering operation.
The company was also forced into a rapid u-turn to change the original name of the ship, the Pieter Schelte. Schelte was Heerema’s father who served as a Dutch officer in the Waffen-SS during the Second World War, for which he was subsequently tried and jailed.
