C-DART is a novel product which is able to connect a floating marine device to its mooring, electrical and fluid system in a quick and safe way.

The C-DART connects into spar buoy, and offers 4 main advantages:

• Significantly reduce HSE risk: No ROVs, divers, high risk deck operations, personnel transfers or close proximity vessel operations
• Increase the operational weather window to allow operations in 2m wave height (Hs), 1m/s tidal flow and hours of darkness
• Improve reliability with a passive connection: No actuators, stored energy systems, complex mechanisms or control systems
• Simple integration with devices: Only existing pad eyes and electrical cable interface, no negative performance impact, potential to provide upstream flow measurement to provide yield improvement and loads reduction

During Stage 3, the project continued to de-risk the design and demonstrate its effectiveness by testing specific aspects of the technology using 4 different test and demonstration rigs. These included a wave tank test, a full-scale wooden geometry mock-up, a marine operations test and virtual prototyping. The outcomes from the testing have fed into the creation of design solution for 2 marine applications.

The system can be used not only by developers within the wave and tidal industries, but it is also suitable for electric and hydrogen vessel charging, and for remote ROV / AUV connections

This collaborative project also brings together technologies from the NWEC, Control Systems and QCS programmes run by Wave Energy Scotland in order to investigate a wide range of potential impacts and step changes in the wave energy sector.