Engineering - the backbone of heavy lift shipping

Over the years, BigLift has brought a great number of challenging projects to a good end, and this was due to a great extent to our in-house engineers. For every challenge there is solution, as they say, and the boys and girls of the engineering department show their worth every time.

This page shows you a bit of the scope that our in-house team can cover. The flyjib, that was developed in 2012 and used on m.v. Happy Buccaneer, has been re-installed on m.v. Happy Sky. For the loading and unloading for Akita wind farm, grillage was designed for the safe handling of transition pieces and monopiles, and for extra strengthening of the weather deck of m.v.v Palmgracht, a hatchcover support system was designed, built and tested.

Flyjib - the continuing story

In 2012, the flyjib was designed by Huisman for m.v. Happy Buccaneer with the then future m.v. Happy Sky and m.v. Happy Star in mind. Once built, the flyjib was initially used in Australia in the Iron ore expansion project at Port Hedland. Now, with a few modifications, the flyjib was designed and prepared by Huisman for m.v. Happy Sky and installed on her Crane 2 (aft) last February. This added 17 m to m.v. Happy Sky’s regular jib length, increasing the crane’s radius to 52 m, with a lifting height above deck to 56 m and an SWL of 350 mt. The flyjib has been installed for the Coral project for Technip, supplying subsea equipment from Europe to Mozambique. This offshore equipment has been pre-rigged and will ultimately be installed by an offshore installation vessel. The cargo including its rigging exceeds m.v. Happy Sky’s normal lifting height limits and the flyjib is installed to bridge the extra metres for loading and discharge. Presently, the flyjib is installed on crane 2 of m.v. Happy Sky. To install it on crane 1 or on either crane of m.v. Happy Star, only minor modifications of the jibs are required. So, both vessels are able to extend their lifting height considerably when required.

Grillage and cradles for m.v. Happy Star

BigLift Shipping's flagship m.v. Happy Star was contracted to transport 4 monopiles and 11 transition pieces (TPs) for the Akita Noshiro wind farm, Japan’s first large-scale offshore wind project. Kajima Corporation, the project’s EPCI contractor, contacted BigLift to complete the logistic puzzle.

With a very short lead time, grillage and cradles were designed and manufactured by BigLift, of course, all in accordance with project requirements.

Although the whole cargo consists of 15 pieces, there is ample variety in sizes and weights to be engineered. The TPs are 33.1 m high and weigh 399 mt (five pieces) and 338 mt (six pieces). Then there is the largest monopile of 72 m long with a diameter of 6 m which weighs 759 mt. The diameter of the other three monopiles is 5.5 m with lengths varying between 50.7 and 55.7 m. Their weights also vary, between 365 mt and 406 mt.

In the end, two different types of cradle were designed to stow the monopiles, whereas grillage was designed to enable seafastening with in-built clamps, wing plates and stoppers, to secure the transition pieces for the long voyage to Japan.

Hatch cover support system - in brief: 'the Table'

After nearly a year of engineering preparations and an intense installation week at Waterland terminal in Amsterdam, the P-type hatch cover support system was ready for use. The project was set up in order to increase the P8 and P14 vessels’ deck load capacity and is now being evaluated during its pilot project onboard mv Palmgracht, on her way to southern Africa. Briefly said, the system consists of three large, partly welded and partly bolted, steel constructions, which were fabricated at facilities in The Netherlands. The system has been engineered and manufactured in such a way that it can be containerized with relative ease and can be shipped to any project site around the globe. The onboard installation week alongside, did not come without its challenges but was executed timely and without incidents, followed by quayside table assembly, jointly performed by BigLift Operations and Spliethoff crew. The quayside work was mostly done by in-house staff who used rented equipment, whereas the onboard installation, to a large extent, was outsourced but under supervision, to cope with a short time-schedule and significant work volume upon ship’s arrival. The bulk of the work consisted of aligning and welding steel reinforcements between cranes 2 and 3, in the tweendeck of hold no. 2 which could then be efficiently used as an invaluable open work space within convenient reach from both portside cranes. After landing and aligning the three table constructions in the ship’s hold, the project team and crew were left with the biggest challenge so far – that of closing all the gaps between the installed table structures and the rolling pontoons, to minimize deformation by future cargoes.