Turkish heavy lift and move contractor Hareket used Goldhofer SPMT axle lines to handle the heaviest load in its history when it moved two 6,200t passenger ships over a distance of 250m to a floating dock at the Tersan Shipyard in Turkey recently.
Hareket Heavy Lifting & Project Transportation had earlier won the contract to move the two passenger ships, which are about 124m long, 22m wide and 35m high. To transport the ships to the floating dock, Hareket employed a total of 200 heavy-duty axle lines from Goldhofer with 1,600 wheels. The equipment included 56 Goldhofer PST/SL-E heavy-duty modules with hydrostatic drive and electronic multiway steering plus 36 Goldhofer conventional THP/SL heavy-duty modules.
Abdullah Altunkum, member of the Hareket Board, said: “Although the distance to be covered with the two ships was not very long, the weight of the vessels and the handling were a major challenge for Hareket, and we are proud to have managed it in such a short time.”
The operation also included moving the ships sideways by more than 2m over the short distance of the route for correct alignment with the floating dock. While the self-propelled modules with their electronic steering systems could be steered using a single remote, a separate Hareket operator was needed to keep the steering of the conventional heavy-duty modules in sync. It nevertheless took the Hareket specialists only four days to relocate the two ships in the floating dock with a space of just 1.5m between them.
The two ships – the Havila Capella and Havila Castor – ordered for the Norwegian Havila Kystruten fleet, will go into service on the coastal route between Bergen and Kirkenes. The ships are state-of-the-art in terms of eco-friendly design and engineering. They are powered by LNG and batteries but are also designed for retrofitting with hydrogen fuel cells.
