Snap shots
Mounting Luffing Harbour Cranes for French Guyana
BigLift was contracted by AES (Automatismes Etudes Services/Dinson) to transport one and a half level Luffing Harbour Cranes from Taicang (PRC) to Degrad des Cannes, the main port of French Guyana. In Taicang, at the Runhe Terminal, the crane parts were delivered by 2 barges and loaded on board by Happy Star's own heavy lift cranes.
At Degrad des Cannes, the crane assemblies were mounted on the gantries, again by using Happy Star's own cranes. To ensure a level lift, BigLift used its Synchoist Cylinders; hydraulically driven cylinders with a safe lifting capacity of 250t/cylinder, with a 1m stroke and operable when loaded.
To mount the crane assembly onto the gantry, the Happy Star lifted the crane assembly 30m above the quayside, the gantry was then driven underneath and by precise manoeuvring with the Happy Star's heavy lift cranes, the flanges were matched and 80 bolts were put in to secure the top and bottom of the Harbour Cranes. The bolts were installed in conjunction with Dinson personnel.
After these successful installations, the heavy lift rigging could be disconnected from the crane assembly, for which a very large cherry picker was used and a rope access team from Kwata.
M.v. Palmgracht shuttling for Dogger Bank
For about six months, Spliethoff's m.v. Palmgracht sailed from Montoir de Bretagne in France, and Bilbao in Spain, to Teesport in the UK to deliver Haliade X nacelles and wind turbine towers for the Dogger Bank Wind Farm that is being built some 130 to 190 km North West of the UK in the North Sea, and is one of the largest, if not the largest, projects for wind energy.
BigLift vessels took part in the delivery of elements for this park in an earlier stage of the project, and now Spliethoff's Palmgracht was sailing nine trips of about 800 nm one way to deliver 705 mt nacelles – six per voyage – and upto 40 m long tower parts for four complete towers in every trip.
With the nacelles' ample sizes of 21.3*11.2*13.2 m, it required a fair deal of preparation and took very careful handling on the quay side.