July 25 - Croatia's R&B Global Projects has chartered space on a multipurpose heavy lift vessel in order to ship three crewboats from Kobe, Japan to the Sharjah Hamriyah free zone port in the UAE.
Two of the boats, each of which weighed 36 tonnes, were stowed under deck, while the larger boat, which was 33 m long and over 13 m high, was loaded onto the vessel's deck.
R&B's director Dave Roosen explained that although the larger passenger boat had a declared weight of 145 tonnes, when the ship's gear began lifting the boat, it was found to actually weigh over 200 tonnes. Lifting operations had to be stopped due to the equipment beginning to bend and crack, said Roosen.
After some "challenging discussions", said Roosen, the loading of the heavier boat was finally accomplished with the use of new spreader and lifting frames.
The boats are expected to arrive in the UAE in early August.
