Floating Cranes News

Tens of gigawatts of floating wind projects are slated for development in this and the next decade, but many obstacles remain.There has been much focus on the emerging floating wind market of late.The U.K. is forging ahead with commercial scale floating wind developments through the Scotwind and INTOG awards of at least 24 gigawatts (GW) of floating wind capacity representing close to 1,500 floating turbines that will come on stream through 2030. And this will be soon followed by the award of at least 4 GW of capacity through the Celtic Sea floating wind auctions. The U.S.

The recent delivery of a Marine Travelift 820CII (820 metric ton/1,804,000 lbs. capacity) Mobile Boat Hoist to the Stevens Towing Company, Inc. shipyard located on Yonges Island in South Carolina will transform marine services by alleviating overwhelmed dry dock schedules in the region.Founded in the late 1800s as Stevens Brothers with a single boat, Joseph Stanyarne Stevens and William Yates Stevens transported produce and supplies from Edisto Island to Charleston and many points in between.

Norwegian engineering and construction firm Aibel's yard in Thailand has completed the construction of the Dogger Bank A wind farm substation topside, in what is the first ever HVDC converter platform exported from Thailand.Loaded on a BigLift heavy transportation vessel, the topside is now en route to Haugesund, Norway where further equipment will be installed ahead of the installation at its final offshore location at what will be the world's largest offshore wind farm, the Dogger Bank…

On Oct. 10 last year, eight North Korean vessels - several carrying illicit coal shipments - were anchored in Chinese waters off the port of Ningbo-Zhoushan, according to a photo in a U.N. report published online on Friday.That appears to be a lax enforcement by China of U.N. sanctions aimed at curbing Pyongyang’s nuclear program under which countries are required to inspect cargo destined to or coming from North Korea that is within their territory or being transported on North Korean-flagged vessels.The annual report to the U.N.

Associated Terminals runs an impressive mid-stream cargo handling operation on the Lower Mississippi River, unloading bulk carriers with high-efficiency cranes loading a carousel of barges. Maritime Reporter & Engineering News/MarineLink.com spent some time with Todd Fuller, President, Associated Terminals to discuss the operation.For those not in the know, provide an overview of the Associated Terminals assets in your New Orleans midstream cargo ops.Associated Terminals operates 13 deep draft midstream berths and 11 deep draft fixed dock facilities on the lower Mississippi River.

Semco Maritime participates in the salvage operation in raising the frigate KNM Helge IngstadIn cooperation with the salvage company BOA and the Norwegian Navy and Material Command, Semco Maritime participates in the current salvage operations of the frigate KNM Helge Ingstad.The frigate has partly been raised and the job is now to prepare and complete the next phase, which involves lifting and securing the frigate onto a special barge for her transport to Haakonsvern naval base.The frigate has arrived at Semco Maritime's yard facilities at Hanøytangen…

Dutch flag Heavy Transport Vessel BigLift Barentsz arrived in Port of Rotterdam from China by way of the Northern Searoute.The vessel is specially designed and built for polar waters. The route, when open, considerably reduces the distance between China and Europe compared to sailing round Asia and through the Suez Canal.BigLift Barentsz carried parts of the new 5,000 t crane for Allseas’ Pioneering Spirit. The parts had been loaded at the Huisman terminal at Zhangzhou, China, and were now discharged onto barges by Bonn & Mees’ floating cranes.The cargo will be stored until Pioneering Spirit returns to Rotterdam. Presently, BigLift Barentsz is on her way to Flushing for her next assignment.

Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) loaded the biggest ship propeller in the world onto a vessel. The “HHLA IV” floating crane brought the gigantic 110-tonne object to the port of Waltershof, where it was hoisted onto the “Hyundai Supreme” container ship.It was the most powerful ship propeller to have ever been lifted by the hook of a HHLA floating crane. Although HHLA regularly loads the specialised products of Mecklenburger Metallguss GmbH (MMG) onto ships in Hamburg, the latest propeller, with a weight of 110 tonnes and a diameter of 10.50 metres, surpassed anything that had ever been seen at the port before.MMG is a leading manufacturer of ship propellers.

Crews scrambled on Wednesday to clean up an oil spill from a sunken tanker which had spread to some of Athens's most popular beaches. The 45-year-old vessel, Agia Zoni II, was carrying 2,500 tonnes of fuel when it sank off the island of Salamis on Sunday. By Wednesday, a thick oily tide had covered stretches of the Athens Riviera several miles away. "This is a catastrophe," said Fotis Yiamanis, a resident of the seafront neighborhood of Faliro, where Greeks enjoy morning swims several months of the year. "Even if the oil leaves the surface of the water, the rest is going to sink and set in the sand. The coast guard said authorities had sealed the shipwreck on Tuesday and there was no further spillage.

The almost 100-year old firm has many specialties, including the ability to construct innovative, complicated tonnage for its own purposes. The slowdown in barge construction in some sectors hasn’t dampened the need for specialty barges in other areas. In many cases, these mission requirements can involve the repurposing of existing tonnage using sometimes innovative and unusual design parameters. Such was the case when Cranford, NJ-based Weeks Marine (WMI) completed the conversion of an existing ABS deck barge into a loadline compliant, semi-submersible, all self-contained unit. Its first assignment involved transit to Canada for the launching of concrete caissons in Halifax, Nova Scotia for a new pier.

The business portfolio internationalization and the development of river operations are two of ETE Group’s strategic focus, as referred last Friday on the 80th birthday ceremonies at Naval Rocha shipyard (in Lisbon) with the presence of the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the Minister for the Sea Affairs, Ana Paula Vitorino and the Minister for Environment, Matos Fernandes. According to Luis Nagy, the CEO, “at ETE Group we are  starting the ninth decade with a strong focus on the internationalization of our operations, which have been growing and, we hope, will represent, in 5 years’ time, 30 to 40% of our turnover, against the present 10%.

Terex Port Solutions (TPS) has obtained design approval for Terex Gottwald Model 8 floating cranes in the G HPK 8200 B four-rope grab variant operated on the open sea. This was necessary because the Lloyd's Register Code for Lifting Appliances in a Marine Environment has changed since the initial approval of the machines in 2007. The design of the crane, which offers an outreach of maximum 50 m, a 63 t grab curve and lifting speeds of up to 140 m/min, has also been completely reworked in the meantime and adapted to the current Model 8 series standard. According to Lloyd’s Register, the G HPK 8200 B cranes can be used at wave heights of up to 2.5 m and wind speeds of up to 20 m/s.

The guide helps to identify countermeasures to avoid human errors and bad decisions. Discover how to manage the human element on all levels – from the engine room, to the bridge, to the shore. From our summary of “The Human Element – A Guide to Human Behavior in the Shipping Industry,” we examine the chapters “Making Sense of Things” and “Risk Taking,” breaking down the most relevant information. Dirk Gregory and Paul Shanahan of the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency developed the original guide. People are surrounded by vast amounts of information and need to make sense of it all.

A newly built articulated tug barge (ATB) unit tugboat, was launched for Kirby Offshore Marine on Wednesday, September 2. The new vessel, the 136’ x 44’ x 19’ Nancy Peterkin, is the first of two sister vessels built for Kirby by Ice Floe, LLC dba Nichols Brothers Boat Builders (NBBB). The Tina Pyne is also being built at NBBB and is scheduled for launch in December 2015. The builder said it made use of a new track and dolly system to move Nancy Peterkin from the shipyard to the launch ramp.

Work toward the expansion and replacement of buoy berths and dolphin configurations in the Port of Rotterdam’s Caland Canal and the Botlek is underway, with a targeted operational time of autumn 2015, the Port of Rotterdam Authority announced last week. The buoys and dolphins reinforce the existing clusters in both liquid and dry bulk and are being used more and more, according to the port authority. In the first half of 2015, transhipment at buoys and dolphins rose by 21 percent from 8.3 million metric tons to 10.1 million metric tons compared to the same period last year.

RINA has launched new standards for cranes which will be used for transhipment of bulk cargoes at sea and has completely revised and rebased its rules for offshore cranes used in offshore construction, service and demolition. Under the new rules for lifting appliances, RINA has split the requirements for specific crane types (ship, offshore and transhipping) into free-standing sections to make the rules more user-friendly. The new RINA rules for transhipment cranes provide for a specific notation…

On April 21, Hyundai-10000, Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI)’s newest floating crane, succeeded to the throne of “symbol of HHI” from the two 1,600-ton gantry cranes at its offshore yard by lifting a topside module of Moho Nord tension leg platform (TLP) at once. What makes Hyundai-10000 a successor to the 1,600-ton Goliath cranes is not just because it is new but because it has an unparalleled lifting capacity at one of the world’s biggest offshore yards. Hyundai-10000 can lift subjects about six times heavier than the Goliath crane, hence its name.

The MV Sewol, the capsized South Korean ferry that killed 304 passengers, could be raised, the country's Choson Ilbo newspaper reported yesterday. A 23-member task force of civilian experts and government officials concluded that raising the intact hull of the ferry is possible. The scenario proposed by task force members involves drilling approximately 100 lifting holes on the starboard side of the ship. The hull would then be connected by chains to two floating cranes weighing between 10,000 and 8,000 tons and moved to shallow waters.

Terex® Quaymate M50 mobile harbour crane is Crane of the Year – Dr. Rotterdam/Düsseldorf, 24 November 2014 – Terex Port Solutions (TPS) has been successful in two categories of this year’s awards, presented by the leading international specialist magazine International Bulk Journal (IBJ). In Rotterdam, TPS received the Crane of the Year award for its Terex® Quaymate M50 mobile harbour crane, launched in spring 2014. In addition Dr. Mathias Dobner, Vice President Development, Engineering & Operation at TPS, was named Personality of the Year. Since 2009, IBJ has presented these awards. They are considered some of the most sought-after prizes in the bulk materials handling market.

A combination of three Dutch offshore companies realized a unique operation in the North Sea, installing a giant ‘power socket’, the SylWin alpha platform. Siemens commissioned Seaway Heavy Lifting to perform an unusual operation that in turn called in the assistance of maritime service provider Dockwise and engineered heavy lifting and transport specialist Mammoet. Weighing 14,000 metric tons, the 83-meter long, 56-meter wide and 26-meter high SylWin alpha platform, built by Siemens, is the largest in its kind.

The Port of Rotterdam says that the first commercial cargo has been transhipped on the inner waters of Maasvlakte 2. At one of the two specially designed berths, oil products were transhipped from the ‘Blue Marlin’ to the ‘Chemtrans Sea’. As the berths are sheltered, it is possible to work faster, more reliably and more safely than on open sea. At the end of this year, the terminals on Maasvlakte 2 will be operational and containers will also be handled there. The Port explains that the cargo handling facilities in the northwest corner of Maasvlakte 2 are an expansion of the already existing ship to ship locations in the port. For the new berths, two sets of eight large poles have been erected. At these dolphins, ships with a length of 225 to 350 metres can moor.

An offshore installation method that is more than three decades old is generating renewed interest from many operators who are challenged with designing heavy-lift crane installations. Float-over installation has become a cost-effective alternative to lift installation for offshore construction, as ever-increasing size and weight of decks constantly exceed the lifting capacity of floating cranes. Exploration of oil and gas in more remote offshore fields is driving the increasing demand for larger offshore units along with float-over installations.

Maritime Broadband’s C-Bird, a VSAT communications solution available for continuous connectivity at sea, is gaining wide acceptance among major companies in the shipping industry, the manufacturer said. The company recently added Enterprises (Greece), Hellespont (Germany) and Sobelmar (Belgium) to their growing list of key clients. Drynet (Hamburg), Dutch Marine (Rotterdam), Elektro Deniz (Istanbul), Telopsys (Athens) and Zener OneNet (Dubai) have joined as key distribution partners. Offering reliable service via the C-band satellite network available at affordable rates, Maritime Broadband’s C-Bird system enhances the operation and safety of ships…