SAL Heavy Lift claims its vessel the mv lone has entered the record books by achieving a 20-day transit between Batam in Indonesia and the Firth of Forth in Scotland. The 12,500 dwt specialised heavy-lift ship completed the 8,733 nautical mile voyage at an average speed of 19.3 knots on the 16 May.
Heavy lift deliveries are not normally associated with speed, and SAL points out that 19.3 knots (22.2 mph or 35.7 kph in land speed terms) , sustained over such a long distance “is a considerable achievement, and for a specially equipped vessel like mv lone, it’s a record”. The vessel, built in 2011 has an LOA of 160m and a beam 28m.
The cargo, a Submerged Turret Production (STP) buoy weighing 1,100t, had a tight delivery schedule of three weeks. The destination was an off-shore drilling project off the east coast of Scotland, and the mv lone sailed across the
Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal to North Europe via the Mediterranean.
Commenting on the recordbreaking run, SAL project manager Matthias Meyer said: “A journey of nearly 9,000 nautical miles is not quite halfway around the world, but it is not far short. To maintain this sort of average speed through all weathers is an impressive feat of seamanship, and we are proud of the officers and crew of lone for making this possible.”
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This complete item is approximately 300 words in length, and appeared in the July 2016 issue of WorldCargo News, on page 15. To access this issue download the PDF here.
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