Offshore Marine Technology: 2nd Quarter 2017
Huisman has released its new ‘Foldable Offshore Crane’ design, which, the company claims, was developed specifically for cost-effective offshore wind turbine maintenance operations.Featuring a foldable boom, the crane has been designed to be as lightweight and compact as possible, taking up a minimum of deck space when in storage position and thus enabling installation aboard a smaller jack-up vessel than is usually required for offshore wind farm maintenance tasks, Huisman says.
The company adds: “By slightly tilting the knuckle, extra boom clearance is created. This simplifies lifting of large loads and reduces the required boom length to reach above the middle of a nacelle.”
The manufacturer describes the “ideal maintenance jack-up” as having a lifting capacity of “up to 500-600 metric tonnes” and “a lifting height of over 160m [above deck level]”, and has designed the Foldable Offshore Crane accordingly. The crane has also been designed to be retrofitted on existing jack-ups.
