Ale News

The Swedish Maritime Administration has purchased the 18-year-old icebreaker Polar Circle, expanding its fleet of icebreaking ships to help keep the nation's ports and shipping lanes clear during the cold winter months.In December, the Swedish Maritime Administration put out a tender to acquire a secondhand icebreaker, with Polar Circle emerging as the most suitable option. The agency recently ran the Polar Circle through trials in the Gulf of Bothnia before committing to purchase the vessel."We are delighted to welcome Polar Circle to our fleet.

A fire broke out on Saturday aboard Suncor Energy-operated Terra Nova FPSO offshore Canada, the offshore oil and gas regulator C-NLOPB said.Suncor told C-NLOPB that everyone onboard was accounted for and safe, and that the fire had been extinguished."There are no injuries and we await further information from Suncor as to the extent & their assessment of the cause," the C-NLOPB said Saturday. According to a report by CBC, there are 82 people aboard the FPSO.Per C-NLOPB, there is no gas or crude held onboard the FPSO which has been shut down for maintenance."The facility is not producing at this time,” CNLOPB tweeted on May 30.To remind…

The Netherlands-based Mammoet confirmed it has completed its acquisition of UK-based rival ALE, creating the industry’s largest engineered heavy lifting and transport services provider.The businesses will operate as one company under the Mammoet brand with more than 140 offices and branches worldwide, Mammoet said in a press release on Wednesday.An integration plan to be rolled out over the coming months will focus on bringing the two organizations together, Mammoet said. ALE executive board member Michael Birch will join Mammoet's executive management team as chief commercial officer.

The global heavylift and transportation provider ALE Heavylift said that its K1650L tower cranes have begun work to install wind turbine generators (WTG) near Port Augusta in southern Australia, where they will help to power 155,000 homes.It is the first time this type of crane has been used for wind turbine installation in Australia. ALE has brought two of the innovative cranes to the country, where one recently commenced work at Lincoln Gap Wind Farm.The K1650L tower crane was selected for the project due to its high wind speed tolerance and small footprint. The crane’s compactness means the size of hardstand can be reduced by more than 50% in comparison with other cranes widely used in the wind industry…

Mammoet, the privately held Dutch company specialized in engineered heavy lifting and transport of over-sized and heavy objects, said it has signed an agreement to acquire fellow international heavy lifting and transport specialist ALE.No further details will be given until after closing of the transaction, Mammoet said.Both companies are specialists in engineered heavy lifting and transport for sectors such as the petrochemical industry, renewable energy, power generation, civil construction and the offshore industry.Paul van Gelder, CEO of Mammoet said, “Mammoet and ALE complement each other in geographical presence on all continents. Together, we have a well-balanced portfolio of activities worldwide.

ALE, a solution provider for heavy transport and lifting, completed the launch of the first ever submarine to be locally-assembled and launched in South East Asia.According to a press release, the KRI Alugoro (405) submarine was the final vessel to be commissioned as part of a $1.2 billion contract between Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) and the Indonesian Ministry of Defence for three diesel-electric submarines.Following the successful completion of the Alugoro, DSME and the Indonesian Ministry of Defence signed a contract for a further three submarines.The KASEL 3 submarine, weighing 1,331 tons, had to be loaded-out onto a barge, towed to a dock, transferred to a floating dock, then a pontoon, before eventually being launched.

UK-based ALE Heavylift and compatriot engineering and construction company J Murphy & Sons announced a new collective partnership to offer linear winch hire, pipe pulling and installation engineering services worldwide.As part of the agreement, ALE will also have access to equipment designed by Murphy subsidiary Land & Marine. Based in the UK, Land & Marine’s product portfolio includes pipe handling equipment such as rollers and rail bogies, as well as 800-metric-ton capacity liner winches.Land & Marine’s design is patented and allows socket passing under load as well as utilizing advanced hydraulic controls for accurate monitoring.

Transportation and lifting services company ALE Heavylift has completed the transportation, lifting and installation of eight modules, weighing up to 1,820 tonnes, for an Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) construction project in Singapore.ALE was tasked with transporting, lifting and installing eight modules, weighing up to 1,820t, onto an FPSO for the Liza Destiny FPSO project, said a press release from the UK-based company specialising in heavy transport and lifting, including transportation and installation of heavy items.The teams’ proactive approach to safety was recognised with the ‘Best Safe Supervisor Award’ granted…

Global heavy lift and transportation specialist ALE has expanded its heavy lifting services by establishing a non-disclosure agreement with the Port of Dundee, which is owned by Forth Ports, and lifting, jacking and storage specialist OM Heavy Lift to provide the full service of port operations.ALE signed the agreement with OM Heavy Lift, a subsidary of OilMac who recently bought ALE’s Gottwald MK1500 crane, and the Port of Dundee.ALE will be working alongside OM Heavy Lift, with the use of their heavy crane, and the port, who currently work with offshore wind and decommisioning clients in the North Sea, to provide a more complete heavylifting and port handling scope of work to the the renewables market.With many years of experience…

The stern section of Britain’s new polar research ship, RRS Sir David Attenborough, will be transported by barge this week from Hebburn-based shipyard A&P Tyne (Newcastle), part of A&P Group, to the Cammell Laird’s shipyard in Birkenhead. The new ship is a major U.K. Government investment in frontier science. Commissioned by NERC, and built by the world famous marine engineering company Cammell Laird Shiprepairers & Shipbuilders Ltd. The vessel is a Rolls-Royce design, and will be operated by British Antarctic Survey when the ship enters service in 2019.

1842 - Congress replaces the Board of Navy Commissioners, a group of senior officers who oversee naval technical affairs, with the five technical Bureaus, ancestors of the Systems Commands. One of the 1842 Bureaus, the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, continues to serve under its original name. 1862 - The daily rum issued to US Navy sailors on board vessels is abolished. On July 14, by an Act of Congress, the spirit ration ceases Sept. 1. Secretary of Navy Gideon Welles issues…

Scuba divers have found the largest cache of gold coins ever discovered in Israel working on wreck site in the ancient harbor of Caesarea on the country's Mediterranean coast, reports the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA). The treasure trove of 2,000 coins weighs more than 20 pounds and dates back more than 1,000 years to the era of Fatimid Caliphate, which ruled much of the Middle East and North Africa from 909 to 1171. “It is probably the shipwreck of an official treasury boat which was on its way to the central government in Egypt with collected taxes…

AG&P ALE Ventures Pty Ltd., an Australian-based consortium says it has successfully deployed its proprietary mobile port solution, the Hydro Deck, to deliver the first modules to the Northern Territory’s largest-ever construction project, the INPEX-operated Ichthys LNG Project. Over the course of the project, the Hydro Deck will offload more than 200 large, pre-fabricated modules from sea to ground, overcoming Darwin’s twice-a-day, up to eight metre tidal variations. Measuring 140m x 40m x 12m, the Hydro Deck uses a water ballast and air tank system to provide buoyancy control, which allows it to compensate for both rapid tidal variations and load balancing as modules move across its deck.

Many universities are adding or expanding their underwater archaeology programs in an effort to give students a broader educational experience and a better understanding of our maritime history. The field of underwater archaeology is expanding rapidly as the equipment required for marine exploration becomes more affordable, and more scientists and researchers learn to scuba dive. Indiana University (IU) Bloomington has one of the oldest academic diving programs in the country.

Jumbo Shipping has completed its eight-month heavy lift transport contract for client KNPC (Kuwait National Petroleum Company). The contract involved the transport of 37 reactors, separators and coke drums for KNPC’s Clean Fuels Project expansion. Jumbo’s Total Transport Solution included shipping and barging operations, as well as land transport. From October 2010 until June 2011, Jumbo’s Heavy Lift Vessels Jumbo Jubilee and Fairpartner and its flat-top barge JB-2 transported heavy refinery equipment from Hazira, India and Porto Marghera, Italy to the storage area in the Port of Shuaiba in Kuwait. Weights varied from 280 t coke drums up to 1595 t reactors, with the largest reactor measuring 42 x 8.5 x 7.5 m.

BAE Systems Information and Electronic Systems, Nashua, N.H., is being awarded a $33,676,912 modification to a previously awarded firm fixed price contract (N00019-08-C-0044) for the Low Rate Initial Production Lot V of the Integrated Defensive Electronic Countermeasures (IDECM) AN/ALE-55(V) Subsystems and associated technical support and non-recurring engineering for the U.S. Navy and Royal Australian Air Force F/A-18E/F aircraft. The AN/ALE-55(V) subsystem consists of an electronic frequency converter (EFC) and a fiber optic towed decoy (FOTD). This modification provides for a total of 70 EFCs for the U.S. Navy, (58) and the Royal Austra lian Air Force, (12); and 323 FOTDs for the U.S. Navy, (251) and the Royal Australian Air Force, (72).

SeaWave LLC's marine communications suite includes SeaWave Navigator 2.0 and SeaWave Integrator, the later is a hardware device that comes bundled with SeaWave Communicator 3.0. SeaWave Navigator 2.0 is Windows based software bundled with a DSP modem and works with most existing SSB radios specifically for low bandwidth use. SeaWave's proprietary HFVelocity, utilized in both products, provides enhanced data compression and state-of-the-art signal processing, Auto Connect and Automatic Link Establishment (ALE). SeaWave software continuously scans all available HF frequencies during periods of inactivity. When a communication task is initiated…

SeaWave LLC announced the completion of two new communications stations in South Texas and Seattle, Wash. The new stations consist of multiple antenna arrays which bolster SeaWave’s world-wide coverage, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico, South America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the Pacific coast. The new communications stations are just two of SeaWave’s many dedicated directional antennas located throughout North America and Europe and complement existing Satellite and GSM solutions already offered by SeaWave. “These new communication stations were designed and built to support the increased network performance and efficiency made possible by SeaWave’s suite of communications products,” stated Joe Estrada, Director of Operations, SeaWave LLC.