Ships – Towing or pushing
Patent
1998-07-09
2000-04-04
Morano, S. Joseph
Ships
Towing or pushing
114253, B63B 2156, B63B 2104
Patent
active
060447877
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE ART
The present invention concerns a ship which is adapted to generate tensile stresses in a pull line extending between the ship and an object to which a pull is to be applied, said ship comprising at least one line pull winch.
MOST IMMEDIATE PRIOR ART
The marine industry today includes ships and barges which are used for generating tensile stresses in lines which extend between a ship and an object. The ships/barges are frequently specially designed and can be used only for a specific purpose. The objects may e.g. be anchorages for vessels and offshore structures, grounded ships and ships to be towed.
Thus, within e.g. the offshore industry, specially built anchor handling ships and large crane vessels are used for handling the paying-out and testing of anchoring lines/anchor systems for the production systems. The reason is that today production systems are established at a water depth of up to 800-1200 meters, which makes unusually high demands on the ships/equipment to be used in order for the paying-out and testing of anchoring lines/anchor systems to be handled rapidly and reliably.
It is not unusual that the minimum holding power requirement of the anchoring systems is 700-800 tons for each anchoring line in the anchoring system.
Therefore, the certification authorities make particularly high demands on equipment and testing of the anchoring lines of the anchor systems in order to be sure that the systems satisfy the necessary holding power requirements.
Testing of an anchoring line in a laid anchoring system is impeded to a high degree by the circumstance that the anchored production system is constructed such that the system cannot be subjected to large test forces in a direction opposite to the anchoring line to be tested. Testing must therefore be performed when the line concerned is released from the system, which involves increased difficulty in handling the testing and necessitates execution of time-consuming and laborious operations before the testing is completed.
The use of the ships, crane vessels and equipment known today thus involves very difficult and time-consuming operations when the anchor lines are to be laid out and subsequently tested.
Accordingly, there is a long-felt need for a simplification of these operations and for a simultaneous reduction in the time required to perform these operations.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,988,892 discloses an anchoring system comprising precemented anchoring means. The upper ends of two anchoring lines positioned opposite each other are connected via tackles directly with respective winches on an intermediate barge. The document just teaches pulling at a specific angle and in a specific direction and suggests no structure that allows tensioning of the lines.
However, the barges have not been used in practice, as they are exclusively contemplated for the testing and laying-out of small and simple anchoring system, and further it has been necessary to employ tug boats for slow and cumbersome transport of the barges. Finally, the barge will be unsafe in windy weather, because it does not have the required seaworthiness, so that it is dangerous to be on board the barge.
OBJECT
The object of the invention is to provide a versatile ship of the type mentioned in the opening paragraph, which is capable of safely and efficiently generating tensile stress in arbitrary directions in a pull line extending between the ship and an object without undue time consumption.
THE NOVELTY OF THE SHIP
The ship of the invention is novel in that it comprises equipment in the form of a holding line and a holding line anchorage which is laid out in the desired tensioning direction from the object with a view to generating said tensile stresses, that, at its stern, the ship moreover comprises at least one line entry opening as well as force-absorbing line supports for the pull and holding lines, at least one of said supports being adapted to guide the line concerned in a direction toward the line pull winch, and that the force-absorbing line supports are inter
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patent: 2988892 (1961-06-01), Borrmann et al.
patent: 3151594 (1964-10-01), Collipp
patent: 3750607 (1973-08-01), Seymour et al.
patent: 4476801 (1984-10-01), Foster et al.
patent: 4760992 (1988-08-01), Peppel et al.
patent: 4846446 (1989-07-01), Peppel et al.
patent: 4889065 (1989-12-01), van der Haak
patent: 4892262 (1990-01-01), Hurst
A. P. Moller
Morano S. Joseph
Muldoon Patrick Craig
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