A new engineering company has opened its doors in Hamburg. HeavyLift@Sea offers design and planning services for heavy-lift shipping and offshore projects. The ten-strong team around founders Lars Rolner and Hendrik Gröne takes on projects from designing individual chain hoists to developing special-purpose vessels.
Hendrik Gröne, Managing Director of HeavyLift@Sea, explains the idea behind the business: “The number of ship building sites in Germany is decreasing. At the same time, there is a great deal of engineering know-how to be found in the field of design and technology for challenging shipbuilding projects and in the development of highly complex solutions, which, for example, the shipyards in the Far East cannot offer. This know-how needs to be bundled, maintained and supplied to customers like ship owners and builders of offshore plants. And that’s exactly what HeavyLift@Sea does at the well-established shipbuilding site in Hamburg.” Hendrik Gröne (37) is an experienced shipbuilding expert and previously worked, for example, at the Sietas shipyard in Hamburg as Chief Engineer.
The engineers, technicians and designers at HeavyLift@Sea prepare individual simulations and calculations for their customers to ensure the best possible proportions and movement in the ship, crane and cargo based on their intended application. They design, for example, chain hoists such as special cross beams and they supervise the building work at the shipyards.
Furthermore, they develop entire special-purpose vessels based on customer specifications along with prototypes of their own design, like a jack-up service vessel (for servicing offshore plants) and a heavy lifter. The basic designs of these prototypes can be adapted to specifications of the relevant customer.
Additional staff can be brought in for different projects to expand the core team at HeavyLift@Sea and make it even more flexible.
“Everything we do, we do from the position of chief engineering, which means we are always focussed on the ship’s system as a whole,” explains Hendrik Gröne . “We ensure that the basic concept and the initial idea behind the vessel are observed at all times and remain in place throughout the building process.”
Lars Rolner, who is also CEO of SAL and a renowned expert in the field of heavy-lift shipping, adds: “HeavyLift@Sea has widely extensive know-how and experience in heavy-lift shipping, which is what makes us unique among maritime engineering companies in Germany. Our customers are in the European market, in which there are currently a lot of ship owners looking to remodel their ships to adapt to changing functions, for example, by installing the DP2 system to ensure safety and precision in offshore operations. And then there are the new regulations, for example in the environmental sector, which require the ships to be upgraded.”
One of the first projects that HeavyLift@Sea took on was the development of a chain hoist for the offshore installation of a natural gas field on the sea floor in the eastern Mediterranean. Alongside customer projects, the engineering company also works on a research contract with the Hamburg University of Technology on the subject of ships, cranes and seas.
[mappress]
Press release, October 25, 2012; Image: HeavyLift@Sea