Record Year For Scantrol – Focusing On AHC In Asia
Due to increased interest in Active Heave Compensation (AHC) systems, Scantrol has had a busy year in 2013. Focusing on the buoyant subsea market in the Far East and Europe, Scantrol has become a recognized player in the offshore industry.
Scantrol is proud to have supplied control systems to the world’s biggest seismic vessels, Ramform Titan. A number of new modern trawlers have deployed Scantrol trawl systems during the year as well. In addition, Scantrol is working continuously to develop an underwater vision system for research purposes and subsea operations.
Worldwide presence
During 2013 Scantrol has experienced an increasing demand for AHC control systems for different applications for both new and existing winches and cranes. Vessel owners worldwide have started to pay attention to the added value this technology can bring in terms of increased operational time, even in rough weather conditions.
Scantrol has been present at the major offshore and subsea trade shows to promote AHC in different markets worldwide. Singapore is one of the markets that has become very important for Scantrol.
Fugro Subsea Technologies has chosen Scantrol as AHC partner for its Launch & Recovery Systems (LARS). The main reason for investing in AHC technology has been to increase operational time for the ROV support fleet. In addition, AHC technology can reduce the reliance on ROV piloting skills required for certain subsea operations.
– The AHC solution from Scantrol is modular and could easily be integrated into our existing LARS system logic control without having to start from scratch, says William Lee, General Manager of Fugro Subsea Technologies.
AHC for other applications
In addition to supplying AHC LARS systems, Scantrol is also working on a number of crane projects. One of them is with Jebsen & Jessen Offshore in Singapore, one of Asia-Pacific’s leading multi-disciplinary offshore engineering and construction firms.
The company provides products, installation services and equipment tailored for both shallow and deep water application. The equipment division is one of the largest manufacturers of offshore winches, cranes, A-frames and complex deck machinery systems in Asia.
One of the interesting projects for crane manufacturer J&J Offshore uses fiber rope instead of steel wire for subsea operations. The crane takes 4000 meters of fiber rope and will be in operation onboard a vessel owned by one of the main subsea contractors. This is a very interesting project since the fiber rope can result in more efficient subsea operations in even deeper water.
Another interesting project is in function onboard DOF Subsea’s vessel, Scandic Constructor. The vessel is chartered by Helix Wellops for well intervention. For Scantrol this is a relatively new and interesting application area. In collaboration with the winch manufacturer Protea, Scantrol delivered five AHC systems for this project in 2013.
Supplying the world’s biggest seismic ship
Scantrol is proud to have supplied the control system for 24 streamer winches in collaboration with Kongsberg Evotec onboard the world’s biggest seismic vessel, Ramform Titan. The ship is the first of four vessels being built in Japan for Petroleum Geo-Services.
A dedicated staff from Scantrol has followed the project from the beginning of the process. The team is currently working on the system for the second vessel, Ramform Atlas.
Advanced trawlers with new hull design
2013 has also been a good year within the fishery market, with six new vessels deployed with Scantrol systems.
Three of the vessels built at STX OSV for Aker Seafood have a completely new hull design which is similar to the design of the offshore vessels built at the same shipyard.
The benefits of using the new design is to increase the capacity and reduce the use of fuel. According to Aker Seafood this is an important step towards more environmentally friendly and profitable catch of fish.
Low-pressure specialist Thorleifur back at Scantrol
Scantrol is happy to have low-pressure specialist Thorleifur Gislason in the team again. Thorleifur’s return to Scantrol marks an increasing focus on efficient and beneficial control systems for modern fishing vessels.
His first job back was installing an iSYM Triple Trawl system aboard Estonian vessels. The system makes it possible to tow three trawls in parallel with four winches.
Even though Thorleifur is a specialist in hydraulics, he is now involved with controlling electrical winches at Scantrol.
– The installation of electrical winches is far less complicated than hydraulic winches. In addition, there is no need for tubes and it is always clean around the winches. As far as I can see electrical winches will become more popular in the future, says Thorleifur.
Deep Vision – the future underwater vision system
Another interesting project under development at Scantrol is Deep Vision, an underwater camera system that can identify and measure objects.
Deep Vision has been developed and tested in cooperation with the CRISP centre for research innovation at the Institute of Marine Research in Norway. The system has been developed to meet the needs of fisheries and marine researchers, but also shows great potential for commercial fisheries where the need to target specific species and sizes is becoming increasingly important.
We are happy to announce that Shale Rosen, who has been working with Scantrol on the Deep Vision project for the past few years, was awarded his PhD in November this year on the subject of “Giving eyes to pelagic trawls. Acoustic and optical techniques measure behaviour, species, and sizes of fish in situ”.