IHC Merwede has announced that the launch of the heavy lift vessel Oleg Strashnov for Seaway Heavy Lifting that took place on 22 August 2009, at the IHC Merwede Offshore & Marine facility in Krimpen aan den IJssel, The Netherlands.
With its 5,000 tonne crane capacity (double the lifting capacity of the Seaway Heavy Lift ship Stanislav Yudin) the vessel is the largest monohull heavy lift vessel in the world and is the largest vessel ever built by IHC Merwede.Oleg Strashnov will be an impressive Dynamic Positioning Class 3 heavy lift vessel designed for the installation and removal of offshore platforms, subsea construction and special projects. Seaways tells us:
The new ship will be a state of the art crane vessel available to our clients worldwide. A unique feature of the vessel will be an innovative hull shape, for which a patent is pending, which will enable her to have a transit speed of 14 knots, combined with exceptional working characteristics for a monohull design. This combination will contribute to a further successful execution of projects. Lift heights of 100 m for the 5,000 mt main hook and 132 m for the 800mt auxiliary hook enables the vessel to undertake an impressive range of projects from dual hook upending of large jackets to heavy deck installations. The installed DP3 system also enables the vessel to be employed for the installation of large and heavy subsea structures, TLP/Spar foundations and topsides.
The introduction of the vessel will more than double Seaway Heavy Lifting’s capacity.
A massive 328-foot crane arrived in San Francisco Bay last week to start working on the Bay Bridge’s eastern span project. The crane, called the “Left Coast Lifter“, was built specifically for the Bay Bridge project in Shanghai, China and is the biggest floating crane ever to hit the west coast. It arrived aboard the MV ZHEN HUA 22 and passed under the Golden Gate bridge en route to Pier 7 in Oakland, where it will be tested before being moved into position at the Bay Bridge.
The crane’s boom is 328 feet long, weighs approximately 992 tons and is capable of lifting over 1,800 tons of materials. At a height of about 30 stories, the West Coast Lifter will tower 150 feet over the existing bridges roadway.
Today we have a very special report at Ship of the Day. In the night between friday and saturday, the heavy load carrier Zhen Hua 10 (IMO: 7917410, Port of Registry: Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines), which was anchored near Rotterdam, ran adrift in storm conditions and floated towards the Dutch coast, where she finally ran aground at the ‘Slufter’-beach at the Maasvlakte. For a while it appeared that the vessel was in danger of capsizing, but she was soon stable being stuck in the sand. The Zhen Hua 10 is loaded with 5 containercranes (of which one is destined for the new Euromax-terminal at Rotterdam) from Shanghai and has a crew of 33, which are still on board and not injured. Continue Reading…
Dirkjan (creator of the AIS plot seen above) emailed us with the following update:
I have some news: Zhen Hua 10 is floating again since an half hour. I see this on my Shipplotter screen.
Earlier on Monday they managed to turn the vessel 90 deg,
heading to sea, and around midnight they used 3 harbourtugs
and one big tug (Janus IMO 9367504) and this was succesful.