Icelandic crane rental company DS Lausnir provided lifting and rigging gear, including a frame made of Modulift beams, to lift a 45t boat into water for the first time at a harbour in Hafnarfjörður on the southwest coast of the country, about 10km south of Reykjavík.
Lausnir chose a 250t capacity Grove GMK 5250 (a 2016 model) from its 14-strong fleet of mobile cranes to lift the 5.5m-wide and 12m-long vessel from the dockside into the sea, upon completion of the manufacturing process. Trefjar Ltd. makes a variety of fishing, passenger, and other fibreglass boats, in addition to aquaculture equipment and acrylic parts.
Below-the-hook, Lausnir employed 12m-long, 20t capacity slings and a frame comprised of MOD 50 beams, which each offer up to 50t at 8m or 26 ft. and up to 13m or 42 ft. at a lower capacity, but in this case combined to form a 550cm x 600cm frame utilising CMOD corner frames, from which additional slings were rigged to each of the four corners.
Daníel Sigurðarson, owner of DS Lausnir, said: “It was an easy choice as there is no other approved beam in Iceland that can handle a heavy lift like this. We do own a selection of [Modulift] beams but they are only for internal use, so we sourced the beams for this job directly. Their excellent service and fast response to our demands helps us minimize our own stock. It only took a couple of weeks to get what we needed delivered to Iceland.”
Sigurðarson explained that the engine of the boat, situated at its rear, created a slightly offset centre of gravity that had to be factored into the lift plans. Trefjar provided detailed specifications in advance of the lift so the appropriate lifting and rigger gear could be organised well in advance of the day of the lift.
Spreader and lifting frames are recommended for loads that have more than two lifting points; they are also ideal when headroom is limited. The most economical option is the CMOD modular spreader frame, whereby struts from the beam are combined with four corner units to complete the frame. Customers that already have struts can reuse them with the corner units to achieve four-point lifts. Such frames are also used when there are height restrictions as the height of the rig will be lower than a one-over-two configuration. Not that it was required in this case but Modulift recently developed a T-piece in conjunction with the CMOD, allowing the frame to become a six-point lift with a variety of span sizes.
In addition to its mobile fleet, DS Lausnir also boasts several truck-mounted cranes.
