Rope and Sling Specialists (RSS) has supplied BAM Nuttall Limited (BAM) with lifting and rigging products for use in the modernisation of the Rothera Research Station in the Antarctic.
Modernisation work will take place at the research station over the next 10 years; the construction of a new wharf to accommodate the RRS Sir David Attenborough – the UK’s new polar research vessel – is currently in progress.
Polyester round slings, webbing slings, chain slings, shackles, chain blocks, jacks, and safety harnesses are among the products that RSS has provided to support the wharf renovation. It has also supplied a Modulift MOD 34 spreader beam.
Martha McGowan, project manager at BAM, said that the below-the-hook equipment would be used with two 300-tonne capacity crawler cranes and an 80-tonne capacity mobile crane.
Loads will weigh up to 20 tonnes during the dismantling of the existing wharf, and up to 35 tonnes as the steelwork frames to create the new wharf are installed, she said.
Last year, Trans Global Projects Group (TGP) handled the delivery of equipment and construction materials to the research station, located at Rothera Point, to support the construction of the wharf, as HLPFI reported here.
The RRS Sir David Attenborough is scheduled to come into operation in 2019 and has been under construction at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead, UK. Engineered transport provider and heavy lift specialist ALE has handled several phases of the vessel’s construction, including moving the partially completed polar research vessel, weighing 5,000 tonnes, from the fabrication hall to the slipway at the Birkenhead facility.
In August 2018, Kotug Smit Towage deployed four tugs from its fleet - Smit Barbados, Smit Waterloo, Smit Belgie and Smit Sandon - to tow the 10,000-tonne hull of the vessel to the Camell Laird basin.
