SAL Heavy Lift transports 49 pieces for Horns Rev 3

Date 14 November 2018

The North Sea has recently become the staging post for a huge boom in offshore wind farms, resulting in the involvement of several offshore wind projects for SAL Heavy Lift. Tying in with the ongoing Hornsea Project One offshore wind farm, GeoSea NV awarded SAL, member of the Cargo Equipment Experts (CEE) network in Germany, the transportation of 49 transition pices (TPs) for the Horns Rev 3 offshore wind farm. 

Demanding schedule

The assignment compiles transportation of TPs from fabrication yards in Aalborg, Denmark and Vlissingen, the Netherlands to the project port of Esbjerg in Denmark. “SAL’s ability to meet a very demanding project schedule made the decisive factor for us”, states Andrei Lupan, Logistics Manager at GeoSea. 

Within a very short time frame from kickoff until the start if the project, the SAL team not only prepared a full HSSE and Quality plan, and created the technical design, but also finalised the engineering work. The execution of procurement had to be managed intensively, including professional budget control, and the fabrication of five TP grillages and one lifting tool were also necessary to get MV Lone ready in time to load the first units. 

Close attention to detail and risk in both planning and execution ensured consistent progress and avoided delays – meeting both the client’s and SAL’s own milestones on time.

The SAL project management team succeeded in developing and maintaining a well-structured communication plan with continuous reporting to the client and various sub-contractors. 

“We are proud that GeoSea placed their trust in us for this time-critical project”, explains SAL Project Manager Morten Hinrichs, “Looking at such a tight time schedule, we draw on past experience and expertise to ensure a safe and successful project. With our ready-made designs for TP grillages and TP lifting tools, which can be modified to the specific needs of our clients, it  was possible to meet the demanding requirements of our client.”

Tailor-made lifting tool & grillage 

Each of the 49 TP’s measures 32.27 metres in height, has a dimension of 7.12 metres and has a unit weight of 530 tons. Due to the exceptional heights of the TP’s and their pre-installed roof top a very low rigging height was necessary to ensure a safe and effiecient lift with a sufficient lifting height. For this reason a tailor-made TP lifting tool had to be designed to replace the usual crane hook. All TP’s were transported using a tailor-made seafastening grillage and clamping system. 

Source SAL Heavylift, Cargo Equipment Experts