That was the question asked by some Conimicut residents when they spotted this ship, Living Stone, after leaving the Port of Providence the weekend of Feb. 5. The answer is that the Living Stone is a multi-purpose vessel built by LaNaval for marine construction company DEME, which placed the shipbuilding contract with the shipyard in January 2014. Built in Spain, the vessel was launched in September 2016 and entered into service in July 2018. According to the ship’s website, the state-of-the-art multi-role vessel is capable of performing cable, umbilical and rock installation, trenching, offshore transport and installation works. It is one of the world’s most advanced and biggest subsea cable-laying vessels. It has an overall length of 161m, molded breadth of 32m, draught of 6.5m and deadweight of 13,185 tons. Living Stone includes solar panels and wind turbines on board. It utilizes biodegradable grease and oil in addition to heat recuperation to decrease fuel consumption, as well as minimize CO, NOx and SOx emissions. A heli-deck has been built on the vessel to accommodate a Silkorsky S92 helicopter. The vessel offers accommodation facilities for 100 people in 52 single and 24 double cabins. It was in Providence for a crew change and provisioning and is one several cable laying vessels that frequents ProvPort as the development of offshore wind farms picks up. (Warwick Beacon photo)