SAL Heavy Lift has acquired a configurable crane boom extension. The so-called Fly-jib increases a crane's lifting height and outreach. It has been designed for the cranes of SAL’s Type 183 vessels MV Lone and MV Svenja.

MV Lone is the first vessel in the SAL fleet to carry this new piece of equipment. With the new Fly-Jib, the crane hook towers some seventy metres up in the air. SAL decided to acquire the Fly-jib to increase its heavy lift offering for the offshore renewables and oil & gas markets.

Offshore Pile Driving

The Fly-jib can lift bigger units as well as long components vertically – for example with offshore wind equipment. A challenge SAL faces just now with an offshore piling project.

Sune Thorleifsson, Head of Marine Projects, SAL states; 'Our Fly-Jib has long been on our wish list, but when a client recently approached us with the requirement to support on driving piles into the seabed for an offshore wind project, and the piles being so long that it was otherwise not possible to up-end them for installation, we saw the opportunity to realise this long term dream.' 

Dismountable and Modular Design

SAL Heavy Lift’s sister company SAL Engineering worked with crane manufacturer TTS-NMF to design and develop a Fly-Jib that can suit a wide array of scopes, hence a dismountable and modular design was conceived.

Karsten Behrens, Director, SAL Engineering explains: 'We worked for a long time on various designs together with TTS-NMF – the manufacturer of the cranes on our Type 183 vessels. It was essential that in addition to strong lifting capabilities, that it could be configurable in various modes hence adding to its applicability in various working scopes. Therefore, the Fly-Jib can be configured in a long (23 metres) or a short (13 metres) set-up and is adjustable in three different angles. It is designed to be interchangeable be-tween our Type 183 vessels and can, with modifications to the existing jib, be installed on each of the cranes.'

The Fly-Jib is designed to withstand the forces occurring during a sea voyage and can be installed using only the vessels' existing cranes.

Picture: SAL's MV Lone.