The quiet lever moving offshore chartering this quarter isn’t day rate—it’s columns. When vessel briefs land as “Column A/B/C” or “Colonne 1/2/3,” owners decode, brokers translate, and charterers wait. That lag shifts markets: options expire, mobilizations stretch, and the only boats left are over-spec or far away.

Standardized specs flip that script. Clear fields push demand toward the right tonnage class rather than the loudest availability. We’re seeing fewer knee-jerk DP2 requests on small scopes when the operating window, station-keeping requirements, and metocean limits are explicit. Likewise for CTVs: when site access hours, transfer profiles, and fuel preferences are structured, planners unlock better multi-site scheduling and hybrid utilization instead of defaulting to whatever’s nearest on paper.

One common pattern: a 10-day tug job with modest bollard pull gets posted ambiguously; late bids arrive from 600–800 nm away. When the same brief is structured—laycan, radius, minimum BP, deck area, winch/tow gear, crew certs—nearby vessels surface immediately. The result isn’t just a faster award; it’s fewer standby days, tighter weather risk, and materially lower fuel burn from avoided mobilization.

If you own the brief, standardize these fields every time: ISO dates for laycan and operations window, geofenced work radius, minimum vs preferred BP/DP class, deck area and deck strength, power and fuel type (including hybrid/shore power), crew/cabin config, HSE and class notations, and any port or crane constraints. Add AIS-informed position and owner-declared availability, and your shortlist quality jumps.

Takeaway: Structure your specs before you negotiate rate—because the right columns determine the right vessel, not the other way around.

If you’d like to discuss your offshore projects, reach us anytime at sales@seavium.com.