Hydramec Chooses Scantrol AHC For OBS ROV LARS
Scantrol is proud to announce the delivery of Active Heave Compensation (AHC) for a Launch & Recovery System for another Observation ROV. The LARS, ordered by one of the world’s leading subsea companies, is designed by the British winch manufacturer Hydramec. The recent delivery is the start of a long-term relationship between the two companies in order to meet the increasing demand for new AHC applications from the subsea industry.
The Scantrol AHC LARS system is not the first delivered to a world-leading subsea company, but the first designed in collaboration with Hydramec. Now the two business partners are taking the technology one step further to meet the requirements of the subsea industry.
— Upon request from one of our major subsea customers it was up to Hydramec to come up with a LARS design that had ease of operation and maintenance as well as the ability to achieve the working parameters required to extend the operational time for the ROV vessel, explains Danny Church, Managing Director at Hydramec.
With this in mind Hydramec chose Scantrol as their partner in building and supplying the control system for this LARS, based on the opportunities that Scantrol could afford to Hydramec to achieve a workable and cost-efficient solution for AHC on their OBS ROV LARS. This project provided the perfect opportunity to put the theory into practice.
The LARS was designed around an OBS ROV LARS design already manufactured by Hydramec with the hydraulic system being altered to suit the applications required to achieve the AHC specifications which were 5m of active heave over a 10 second period at a depth of 1200m.
Related to the delivery of the system, Hydramec and Scantrol were asked to assist with the installation of all the equipment onboard the vessel and eventually carry out live tests during sea trials off the Singapore coastline. All tests proved very successful and all parameters were achieved. The vessel then sailed for Congo, where it is due to start operations in September.
PERFECT PARTNER: Danny Church, Managing Director at Hydramec, sees Scantrol as the perfect AHC partner in moving forward the supply of AHC ROV LARS systems to the subsea industry.
— Hydramec is very pleased with the outcome of this project and the service afforded to them by Scantrol and will be looking to further cement this relationship in upcoming projects. Hydramec sees Scantrol as the perfect partner in moving forward the supply of AHC ROV LARS systems to the industry, says Church.
Since completing this project a huge amount of interest has been received by Hydramec from other operators asking for quotations for AHC systems to be utilised with TMS based OBS ROV’s, according to Church.
— Scantrol is proud and excited to work with Hydramec, which has established an excellent reputation in the subsea business for its products and services. Hopefully this is the start of a long-term beneficial partnership, says managing director at Scantrol, Helge Hammersland.
Focuses on AHC for both WORK and OBS ROV’s
Scantrol’s AHC system was originally used mainly on offshore cranes and subsea winches and mostly reserved larger projects due to acquisition costs and lack of accessible technology. However, over the past three years, Scantrol has experienced an increasing demand for flexible solutions for use with other applications as well.
As subsea operations have become more challenging, the demand for AHC solutions has increased. Challenges for multipurpose vessels such as time spent mobilizing a big crane or weather-related downtime are expensive bottlenecks that can easily be remedied with AHC.
In order to meet the demand for flexible solutions, Scantrol has spent the last three years focusing its expertise on developing AHC systems for a wider range of applications making the sought-after technology more available.
AHC Link – cost-effective and time-saving
In response to the market’s demand for new and improved solutions, AHC is continuously developed with new applications and areas of use.
Scantrol has already delivered a number of AHC systems for bigger projects ranging from Launch & Recovery Systems for Work Class ROV’s to world-leading subsea companies such as Fugro and Subsea 7. Now the company is experiencing a huge interest in installing AHC systems on small observation vehicles as well.
In order to make the technology even more available and easy to install and operate, Scantrol is launching a new application, the AHC Link. The application makes it possible to share resources from an existing AHC system with other subsea systems onboard the same vessel.
— With the new application we can install AHC for multiple subsea systems using only one Motion Reference Sensor for all of them. This will reduce the installation costs and save time spent on equipment mobilization, making the system even more desirable for the client. We use a lot of resources to make the technology more available for the deck equipment manufacturer and simpler to install and operate for the ship owners, says Espen Karlsen, Design Engineer at Scantrol.
SCANTROL AHC LINK: R&D Manager Darren Hammersland-White and Senior Design Engineer Espen Karlsen use a lot of resources to find cost-efficient and time-saving AHC solutions for their customers.
Hydramec Offshore Hydraulics Systems Ltd:
Family owned offshore engineering, design, manufacturing and maintenance company
Started out in 1990 with repairing and maintaining a large variety of ship deck equipment and refurbishing ROV LARS
LARS has been the core business since 1996
Supplier for the major subsea companies and ROV operators
Based in Great Yarmouth, England