Page 50: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (February 2021)

TECH FILES HEAVY LIFTERS

Watch William Goodall discuss Mission Ease on MR TV: bit.ly/3r9MOtk

Photo: Vestdavit

He attributes the “impressive longevity” of Vestdavit’s company’s experience with previous deliveries enables it to systems to durable components and regular preventive determine the correct speci? cations for a davit based on maintenance involving both weekly checks, and annual the client’s operational requirement.

and ? ve-yearly inspections in line with IMO guidelines. “Clients such as navies may have very speci? c require-

This is necessary to counter the stresses and strains from ments, such as the need to deploy a craft rapidly at speed repetitive operations in tough sea conditions on a da- in a high sea state, and this in? uences the design of davit vit’s moving parts, such as shock absorbers and winches, we deliver. So dialogue with the end-user is very important to ensure it remains ? t for an operational window of up to us,” Gravdal said.

to sea state six. The functionality of such components is Vestdavit is also taking a technological lead with, for ex- also vital to safeguard both personnel and valuable equip- ample, development of davits using electrical rather than ment inside the craft being dropped to the water, such as hydraulic power and Gravdal believes there will be more a remote-operated vehicle that may be used to detonate a hybrid systems in future. mine at sea. It is now taking a further step forward beyond tradition-

Vestdavit has also developed davits for hostile environ- al davit systems with its innovative MissionEase solution ments like the Arctic with measures such as protective that facilitates deployment of multiple craft from a single housing and hot cables to de-ice components to withstand ‘garage’ inside a vessel using an automated track system.

temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius, enabling One such system is already in operation on a crew- polar vessels to operate in extreme and remote conditions. change vessel and another designed for 13 boats is now

This was demonstrated last year with a pair of Vestda- being installed on the Nexans Aurora subsea cable laying vit’s PLR-5002 davits on Norwegian Coast Guard vessel vessel under construction at Norway’s Ulstein shipyard,

KV Svalbard that was used to retrieve data sensors in the marking the ? rst commercial contract.

Beaufort Sea and the U.S. Coast Guard has recently or- Goodall believes this will pave the way for future such dered the company’s HNFE-5000 davit systems for one of installations of MissionEase on naval vessels and that the its polar security cutters. system also has potential for the expeditionary cruise mar-

Vestdavit Technical Director Helge Gravdal said the ket.

50 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • February 2021

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