Huisman launches renewed series of subsea Knuckle Boom Cranes

Huisman says it has launched a renewed series of subsea Knuckle Boom Cranes for the use in the offshore subsea construction market. With this new series, the company’s portfolio has been adapted to the latest trends in offshore construction vessels with respect to energy efficiency, automation, and safety.

The new, optimised series includes models starting from 85mt up to 350mt and cover both setups with a winch below deck as well as on the back of the crane. Water depths up to 3,000m are included as standard, while deeper water capabilities can be provided as an option. Furthermore, Huisman’s award-winning and patented Fiber Rope solution can be offered as an option on several models of the range to increase the lifting capacity at depth.

The Knuckle Boom Cranes come with the most recent version of Huisman’s Secondary Controlled Electro-hydraulic power system as standard. The origin of this secondary controlled system dates to the 1980s when Huisman pioneered application of such equipment in offshore cranes. Huisman has recently implemented the fifth generation of its motion controller “HMC 05c” in all of these models. This provides crane operators with the most responsive and accurate system on the market. With the latest improvements, interaction with the vessel’s power grid has been improved to allow for use with alternative fuels, including ammonia, methanol, or LNG.

Being the front-runner in Full Electric cranes, Huisman can also offer all cranes in this series equipped with Full Electric Active Heave Compensation (AHC). With today’s focus on high-performance, high-capacity energy storage systems in offshore construction vessels, interaction with full electric AHC and large-scale energy regeneration has become much more realistic in recent years.

In today's offshore crane market, there is a growing focus on lifts from one vessel to another. To address this need, Huisman has introduced a new feature: relative heave compensation. This innovation allows for compensation not only for the motion of the crane vessel but also for the motion of the other supply vessel. Motion detection for the supply vessel is achieved through a remote motion reference unit, which transmits the signal wirelessly to the Huisman offshore crane. This setup has already been integrated into several offshore cranes and is also available as a retrofit upgrade for existing Huisman cranes.

For sizes of 400mt and beyond, Huisman has a portfolio of full electric Hybrid Boom Cranes available, including subsea crane models delivered with a capacity of 1,000mt.

The series of cranes is optimised for high reliability, ease of maintenance and short delivery times from Huisman’s facilities in both Europe and Asia.

Cees van Veluw, Product Director Cranes at Huisman: “With the update of our Subsea Knuckle Boom Crane series, we respond to the market need for technical improvements on existing products. Vessel owners have more and more interest in aiming for zero emissions on their newbuild vessels. Also, battery banks on vessels are not only used for “spinning reserve” anymore, but can serve multiple roles on the vessel, all focused on using the energy more efficiently.”