Hydramec Chooses Scantrol AHC for OBS ROV LARS

Scantrol announced the delivery of active heave compensation (AHC) for a launch and recovery system (LARS) for another observation ROV. The LARS, ordered by a leading subsea company, is designed by the British winch manufacturer Hydramec. The recent delivery is the start of a long-term relationship between the two companies to meet the increasing demand for new AHC applications from the subsea industry.

The Scantrol AHC LARS system is not the first delivered to a aforementioned subsea company, but the first designed in collaboration with Hydramec. Now the two business partners are taking the technology one step further to meet the requirements from the subsea industry.

“Upon request from one of [Scantrol’s] major subsea customers, it was up to Hydramec to come up with a LARS design that had ease of operation and maintenance as well as the ability to achieve the working parameters required to extend operational time for the ROV vessel,” explained Danny Church, Managing Director at Hydramec.

With this in mind Hydramec chose Scantrol as its partner in building and supplying the control system for this LARS, based on the opportunities that Scantrol could afford to Hydramec to achieve a workable and cost efficient solution for AHC on their OBS ROV LARS. This project provided the perfect opportunity to put the theory into practice, Scantorl said.

The LARS was designed around an OBS ROV LARS design already manufactured by Hydramec with the hydraulic system being altered to suit the applications required to achieve the AHC specifications which was 5m of active heave over a 10 second period at a depth of 1,200m.

Related to the delivery of the system, Hydramec and Scantrol were asked to assist with the installation of all the equipment onboard the vessel and eventually carry out live tests during sea trials off the Singapore coast line. All tests proved very successful and all parameters were achieved. The vessel then sailed for Congo, where it is due to start operations in September.

“Hydramec is very pleased with the outcome of this project and the service afforded to them by Scantrol and will be looking to further cement this relationship in upcoming projects. Hydramec sees Scantrol as the perfect partner in moving forward the supply of AHC ROV LARS systems to the industry,” Church said.

According to Church, since completing this project, a huge amount of interest has been received by Hydramec from other operators asking for quotations for AHC systems to be utilized with TMS based OBS ROVs.

Helge Hammersland, Scantrol’s managing director, said, “Scantrol is proud and excited to work with Hydramec, which has established an excellent reputation in the subsea business for its products and services. Hopefully this is the start of a long-term beneficial partnership.”

Focuses on AHC for both WORK and OBS ROVs
Scantrol’s AHC system was originally used mainly on offshore cranes and subsea winches and mostly reserved larger projects due to acquisition costs and lack of accessible technology. However, over the past three years Scantrol has experienced an increasing demand for flexible solutions for use with other applications as well.

As subsea operations have become more challenging, the demand for AHC solutions has increased. Challenges for multipurpose vessels such as time spent mobilizing a big crane or weather-related downtime, are expensive bottle necks that can easily be remedied with AHC.

To meet the demand for flexible solutions Scantrol has spent the last three years focusing its expertise on developing AHC systems for a wider range of applications making the sought-after technology more available.

AHC Link – cost-effective and time-saving
In response to the market’s demand for new and improved solutions, AHC is continuously developed with new applications and areas of use. Scantrol has already delivered a number of AHC systems for bigger projects ranging from LARS for work class ROVs for subsea companies such as Fugro and Subsea 7. Now the company said it is experiencing a huge interest in installing AHC systems on small observation vehicles as well.

To make the technology even more available and easy to install and operate, Scantrol is launching a new application, the AHC Link. The application makes it possible to share resources from an existing AHC system with other subsea systems onboard the same vessel.

“With the new application we can install AHC for multiple subsea systems using only one Motion Reference Sensor for all of them,” said Espen Karlsen, Design Engineer at Scantrol. “This will reduce the installation costs and save time spent on equipment mobilization, making the system even more desirable for the client. We use a lot of resources to make the technology more available for the deck equipment manufacturer and simpler to install and operate for the ship owners.”

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