At the joint booth of Barge Master and Bosch Rexroth, the Barge Master Gangway was presented during the international offshore trade exhibition ONS (Offshore Northern Seas) in Stavanger. This next generation gangway is the result of the close cooperation between Bosch Rexroth and Barge Master. The system is designed for the safe and efficient transfer of personnel and cargo from ships to drilling and offshore production platforms, wind turbines and other ships.
Barge Master is specialized in the development and fabrication of motion-compensating systems, such as cranes and multi-purpose platforms, which are used on ships while offshore. A fast, innovative technique ensures that ships’ movements are compensated, so that the ship mounted cranes remain stable and cargo can be transferred and positioned without problems, even in rough seas.
For the safe transfer of personnel from a ship to wind turbines or production and drilling platforms at sea, Barge Master developed the Barge Master Gangway in close collaboration with Bosch Rexroth. The design of the gangway has been assessed and approved by DNV GL (DNVGL-ST-0358).
Tough challenge
According to Bosch Rexroth general manager Ron van den Oetelaar, the development of the gangway was quite a challenge.
"Due to the simultaneous linear and rotary motions along several axes, which are moreover accompanied by large forces, the active motion-control technology applied in the system is extremely complex," says van den Oetelaar.
"The gangway is placed on a small diameter pedestal with a hinge and a luffing cylinder to compensate the roll motions of the vessel. The gangway can translate and rotate (surge & yaw) in the horizontal plane around the pedestal by using hydraulic motors. Telescopic sections with winches in the bridge ensure smooth translation in sway direction. Extremely fast sensors and control engineering were used for the Barge Master Gangway that could translate the ship’s movements into ‘counter-movements’ for the gangway. The system can compensate for vessel motions up to a significant wave height of more than 3m (Hs). In addition to the gangway system customers can choose for additional modules such as a height adjustable pedestal with an integrated elevator. This option ensures a ‘step-less’ trans-shipment of pallet trolleys, as well as fast and safe integrated logistics between vessel and platform.
Co-production
"During the development, fabrication and the delivery of the system, we will work very closely together with the specialists from Bosch Rexroth," says Barge Master CEO Martijn Koppert.
"We have formed an integrated project team with specialists from both companies making it really different from the classical client-supplier relationship. We are fully fledged partners, the project team takes care of the design, fabrication and timely delivery of the system and both parties will continuously focus on translating clients wishes into a perfect working gangway. The small footprint, its light weight and the modular design with hoisting, elevator and many other options have led to the next generation gangway!
"In order to realize an attractive price setting Bosch Rexroth made maximum use of standard components, the fact that Bosch Rexroth has an extremely wide product range helps enormously in this respect. Although some parts have still been custom-built for this project, the end result has become ‘lean & mean’. We are convinced that our close cooperation resulted in a gangway clients are really looking for. We sold the first unit last month which proves we are right! It will be delivered to our client in Q2 2017."