Largest Offshore Mast Crane Installed On Seven Borealis
Early March, Huisman, successfully installed the world’s largest offshore mast crane – capable of lifting 5,000 t – onboard the Seven Borealis. The crane installation is considered the heaviest and logistically most complex conducted by Huisman to date. After final load testing, the Seven Borealis will depart for the Huisman production facility in Schiedam, the Netherlands, to install a complete 600t S-lay system.
Transport and installation of the crane were performed under the responsibility of Huisman. The transport from the Huisman production facility in Zhangzhou, China to Sembawang Shipyard in Singapore was executed by BigLift‘s Happy Buccaneer, a heavy lift cargo vessel with first generation Huisman mast cranes (1984). At the yard the crane was installed in four days, a lift of approximately 1000 t each day. The four crane pieces were installed in sequence: mast base, slewing section, boom and mast. Currently the reeving and commissioning of the crane are ongoing.
Massive
Every piece of the 5,000t crane is massive. Besides the two 2,500t main hoisting blocks the crane has a 1,200t auxiliary hoist which is equipped with a heave compensator and is capable of storing up to 6,000 m of hoisting wire (109 mm). The tip of the fly jib has an additional 110t auxiliary hoist. This all is accompanied by four load tuggers and an additional five block tuggers. The installed electro motor power is approximately 15 MW, hydraulically another 1.6 MW. The slew bearing is custom designed and built by Huisman. In the meantime, Huisman has started the fabrication of a similar mast crane with a revolving lift capacity of 4,000 t, which is planned for delivery in 2012.