Flexible all-rounder suits changing market

The prototype design for the 22,000dwt HLV1600 was unveiled by new Hamburg marine engineering firm HeavyLift@Sea and the ship will be flexible and versatile, both in its propulsion and design.

MD Hendrik Gröne told The Motorship a medium-speed Diesel propulsion plant providing 16 knots was planned for the new type, which he said could be realised inside just two years. Mr Gröne said heavy fuel use would also be possible as would a switch to slow-speed, two-stroke propulsion or to a duel fuel engine plant with PTI.

He said the heavy lift market had changed a lot inside a very short time and that the demand now was for newbuilds like the HLV1600 which will carry everything from heavy lift and offshore project loads through containers to bulk cargo like grain.

According to Mr Gröne, who previously helped design heavy lift ships at Hamburg’s J.J.Sietas Shipyard, “shipowners are now demanding not only a high level of performance but also versatile application options and maximum ship utilisation”.

The HLV1600 is 169.7m long and 28m wide with a working deck of 3,800m² and an exceptionally large 28,000m³ hold, which can be divided by an intermediate deck. It will boast two cranes of max 1600 tons total and draws max 9m.

Reports noted the new ship will be similar in size to the top end of currently available heavy lift ships and that in times of crisis some owners had difficulties filling such big holds.

Mr Gröne said the ship was offered as “a basic design and (customers) can adapt it precisely to suit their wishes and individual needs”. He told

The Motorship

it had been designed “not as the sum of all its parts, but from a chief engineering perspective as an integrated system in which all individual components interact and influence the whole”.