Rolls-Royce Making Decks Safer

Over the past decade Rolls-Royce has been expanding its Safer Deck Operations systems portfolio, aimed at reducing the risk to crews working on the decks of offshore vessels.  It has been a big safety improvement that is well supported with statistics that show a reduced number of crew injury incidents.

The latest development is a crane with manipulators for handling wires and chains, similar in principle to other Rolls-Royce Safer Deck Operations (SDO) cranes, of which around 140 examples have been sold to date. But this version has been designed for retrofitting to older anchor handling vessels that do not have suitable cargo rails.

This unit is a dual jib knuckle boom crane rotating on a fixed pedestal located on one side of the deck near the stern. Its jibs can command the whole deck area where shackling and other operations on anchors and associated chains and wires take place. 

Its two jibs are equipped with manipulator hands, similar to other cranes in the Rolls-Royce SDO range. The difference is that SDO cranes are typically supplied mounted on carriages that traverse the full length of working deck of an anchor handler, running on tracks on top of the vessel’s strongly plated cargo rails. Older vessels often lack these cargo rails, having just tubular guard rails, hence the need for a fixed pedestal unit. The reach of the new crane is however substantial.  

First into service will be model AH-50-F with a maximum working radius of 14m, capable of lifting 5 tons at 3 – 10m radius and 3 tons out to 14m radius. The crane can rotate about the pedestal 360 degrees without limitation. Designed for the tough conditions offshore it can operate safely in wind speeds to 20m/sec normally or 30m/sec extreme. A larger version, type AH-100-F, with a higher working load and longer reach is also available.

A typical candidate for the new crane is an older anchor handler which was usually equipped from new with a general marine lifting crane near the aft end. The new SDO crane pedestal can be fitted on the existing foundation, replacing the old and worn crane with one that has far more functionality. The AH-50-F is remote controlled by the deck crew from a safe vantage point, and it can be supplied with a mini-simulator. This enables the crew to practice using the crane and its manipulators for the various anchor handling operations during any spare time onboard. 

A ten year old anchor handler, the UT 722 L BOS Turquesa, will be the first to have the pedestal SDO crane installed, in January 2015.