MacGregor crane wins offshore industry innovation award
MacGregor’s three-axis motion compensated offshore crane has won Offshore Support Journal’s (OSJ) Innovation of the season award.
The award emerges for just a product, system or service that’s judged to possess made the most important impact on the planning, build and/or operational issues with offshore support vessels.
What is the news was announced at OSJ’s fifth Annual Offshore Support Journal Conference and Awards event in London, UK, on 19 February 2014, plus the award was presented to MacGregor’s Offshore advanced load handling team looking at a crowd that has reached over 500 people in the conference’s gala dinner.
“It’s an honour to take delivery of such a prestigious prize from one of the extremely reputable forums from the international offshore sector,” says Tom Svennevig, Vp, Advanced Load Handling. “It’s also a vital recognition in our capabilities from peers throughout the offshore industry.”
“In 2012 we also received the OSJ Innovation of the Year award; on that occasion it absolutely was for the Chain Wheel Manipulator,” Mr Svennevig continues. “Winning it to get a second time is specially remarkable, specifically in the facial skin of such notable competition on the shortlist of nominees in the category.”
This bridge crane is often a first-of-its-kind, not simply for MacGregor, but for the offshore industry in its entirety. MacGregor was approached by Siem Offshore to develop a progressive type of crane because of its newbuild infield support vessel Siem Moxie. The crane are going to be shipped to Siem Offshore in March 2014.
“MacGregor’s standard active heave-compensation technology supplied though a bridge crane’s winch compensates for the vessel’s vertical movement, assuring accurate load handling. However, when transferring equipment to # 1 of offshore windmill foundations, which might be about 20m above water and are only 4m2, even more precision is needed,” explained Baard Alsaker, MacGregor R&D Director, Advanced Load Handling.
The vessel will operate from the offshore electrical power markets, performance installations, repairs, maintenance and general service duties. One specific part of Siem Moxie is to transfer containers of tools and equipment to the top of offshore windmill foundations.
“As a result, our engineers developed new technology that compensates for vessel movements inside horizontal plane (pitch and roll) plus the vertical plane.
“Compensating to the horizontal motions makes sure that the bridge crane’s pedestal remains vertical pertaining to the seabed, so that it will almost always be parallel towards windmill structure. Thanks to this three-axis compensation, the crane are capable of doing extremely accurate load positioning operations. The crane can be employed for just a number of other purposes, including ship-to-ship operations. It’s also specified for certification for personnel lifts, further enhancing its flexibility.”
He notes: “We see how the emerging offshore wind sector is constantly on the set new requirements for offshore cranes and we are constantly searching for ways of employing our expertise from the growth and development of new solutions for our customers.”