Doubled up towing winches for ETV Nordic
Nordic is equipped for the most unlikely of emergency situations.
The German headquartered marine equipment supplier HATLAPA has secured the €2.5m order for deck machinery, steering gear and compressors for the ETV Nordic.
Initiated by the German Federal Ministry of Transport, the construction of the ETV was undertaken by three ship owners in the German Bight; Bugsier, Fairplay Towage and Unterweser, joined by Wiking Helikopter, a local specialist helicopter company.
The Nordic’s duties include rescue and recovery of damaged vessels in the North Sea, preventing environmental catastrophies such as the one caused by the Pallas Incident in the late 1990’s.
The €45m Nordic replaces Oceanic, patrolling Helgoland around the clock with its crew of 16. The ETV is equipped for even for the most unlikely of emergency situations.
“In the event of a callout, the most important equipment on board the 78m LOA, 3,300 ton ETV is a specialised HATLAPA towing winch. In this case it is actually two identical winches, installed one behind the other in a so called waterfall design”, explained specialist winch designer Jobst Haasemann. Each dynamic towing winch provides up to 250 tons dynamic pull and up to 380 tons static brake holding force.
“The purpose of having two identical 75 ton winches, each carrying 1,400m of steel wire weighing 40 tons, is guaranteed reliability”, explained offshore sales manager Uwe Nickschat. This duplication means having a backup solution at the push of a button, should there ever be technical difficulties with one of the winches. Each winch has its own drive and can be operated separately.
“This kind of belt and braces approach is relatively new to HATLAPA. It is not usually common in offshore and merchant shipping applications to install two pieces of equipment designed for exactly the same duty, said Nickschat. “You could say it is both expensive and excessive, as in reality, this type of equipment rarely ever fails.”
This was not the first order of this kind for HATLAPA. The offshore research vessel Meteor, the Arctic supply vessel Polarstern, and also the research vessels Sonne and Maria have HATLAPA’s highly specialised equipment on board. In addition, HATLAPA supplied the multi-purpose vessels, Arkona, Neuwerk, Mellum and Scharhörn.
Images for this article - click to enlarge
Unless otherwise stated, all images copyright © Mercator Media 2012. This does not exclude the owner's assertion of copyright over the material.
