Emergency winch department to the rescue
A replacement winch is delivered to the damaged vessel in record time.
A German containership en route to the Caribbean suffered a serious collision while transiting the North Sea, damaging steering gear and causing a leak which measured the height of the port side engine room and threatened to sink the vessel.
As the vessel was towed to shallower waters (having lost three containers overboard and with the crew suffering from smoke inhalation) you would be forgiven for thinking that the voyage was definitely over.
Both the combined anchor and mooring winches in the ship’s bow had been completely destroyed in the accident and needed to be replaced, and the vessel had to go through a complete overhaul.
The real hold up proved to be the delivery time for the replacement winches, which was quoted as six months. However, the ship owner did not want to wait that long and started making phone call to different companies selling deck machinery. This is where Hatlapa’s emergency department came in, as it has a core responsibility to take on special assignments where a more flexible and quicker response time is needed.
The specialist winches the damaged vessel had on board were no longer in stock, but it was possible to switch a couple from another customer’s order and re-assemble them into the particular configuration needed.
‘Make two into four, a lucky streak and challenge at the same time’, was what Hartmut Opitz of Hatlapa was able to tell the ship owner on the same day. Still, this was not going to be easy, as the chain sprockets had to be manufactured in-house.
Hatlapa was asked to put together a formal quotation for delivery and fitting. Mr Opitz spoke to all departments involved and had an estimate ready the very next day, quoting a lead time of nine weeks for delivery and installation of the machinery. However, this was still too long for the ship owner, who wanted it to happen faster.
Hatlapa’s group of specialists then investigated how to shorten the lead time. ‘We have come to the conclusion that in special cases like this, with considerable effort, the lead time could be reduced to seven weeks’, recalled Mr Opitz. This would include shift work and overtime on weekends but the ship owner was delighted, and approved the order only 16 days after the collision.
Six weeks later, a week earlier than discussed, the specialist job was delivered from Uetersen to the repair shipyard in Hamburg and two weeks later the vessel was already back in the water, less than three months after the collision. In only eight weeks the multipurpose vessel had been restored to a seaworthy and fully functional condition.
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