Shiplifts and Transfer Systems
Shiplifts must be operated at a high utilisation to recoup the major investment in equipment and supporting infrastructure. We have planned and designed many shipyards incorporating ship lifts where this launch and retrieval system is the most economical.
Our global track record in designing the supporting civil engineering infrastructures for ship lifts and transfer systems, developed over the last 30 years, means we can deliver cost effective solutions to the demanding standards and requirements of modern ship lift systems.
A shipyard’s business can be wholly dependent on the reliability and efficiency of their ship lifting facility. In the more efficient shipyards ship lifts can be required to function on a daily basis. Shiplifts with winches are the most common and these demand a higher performance from the supporting structure than is required from routine maritime civil engineering, especially deflection.
Our experience includes the whole family of shiplifts:
Winched – ships lifted vertically on platforms connected to winches – then transferred horizontally to land based berths on rail systems
Hydraulic liftdocks – ships lifted vertically by water impounding systems – then floated laterally across the land to berths which subsequently become dry.
Floating dock lifts – ships docked and raised in a floating dock with subsequent horizontal rail or transporter end transfer facility onto the land.
Our experience – your infrastructure
Our experience covers projects across the full spectrum of ship lift size, lift capacity, ground conditions, new shipyard greenfield sites and retrofitting to upgrade existing shipyards. Our projects cover a wide range of:
- Shiplift capacity - 1,070 tonnes to 25,000 tonnes
- Platform size - length 32.5m to 188.4m, width 12m to 34m
- Type of business - naval (surface & submarines), commercial, cruise, shipbuilding and ship repair
- Transfer - end only to land transfer area, side only to land transfer area, side and end to land transfer area
- Shiplift type - winched, hydraulic lift dock, floating dock lift
- Ground conditions - granite, dense sand, reclaimed land with soft marine clays, former mangrove swamp
- Service to client - shipyard planning to optimise utilisation. Detailed design of shiplift infrastructure. Project and procurement management. Technical audit and value engineering
- Locations - Worldwide