Last week the OPERA Consortium met in Porto to assess technical progress achieved so far and plan the forthcoming activities. Representatives of the all Consortium partners and three members of the External Advisory Board (EAB) participated in the first day sessions and technical visit to Lankhorst-Euronete in Paredes on the second day. The General Assembly meeting continued with technical meetings in the afternoon and cross-cutting issues on the last day.
Lankhorst-Euronete facility specialises in the manufacture of synthetic ropes for fishing, the maritime industry and offshore mooring. Actually, one of the OPERA project innovations, namely the elastomeric mooring tether was produced there. During the tour, visitors could learn about the manufacturing process of offshore ropes, see the dedicated machinery and check one specimen of the tether tested in this facility.
The OPERA project thanked Lankhorst-Euronete for their hospitality and immortalised the moment with a group photo.
After having survived its second winter in a row at BiMEP, the floating OWC prototype, MARMOK-A-5, is preparing to be towed in this summer for refitting and integration of the different innovations that have been developed in the OPERA project. Then it will be returned to it mooring site to collect more data for benchmarking.
