Cape Holland Vibro Lifting Tool handles & drives 360-ton monopile

For the installation of the NAM L13-FI platform in the Dutch sector of the North Sea, a large 960 kg Vibro Lifting Tool was successfully used by Scaldis’ Rambiz to pick up a 4.7-m diameter, 40.5-m long and 360 ton monopile from a barge, upend it to vertical position and drive it at 0.2° (well within the 0.5° required tolerance) verticality without a gripper frame or seabed installation frame.

Dutch vibro-piling specialist CAPE Holland has successfully developed the application of vibro-hammers for offshore purposes and has been leading the way in using multiple linked vibro-hammers in both Offshore Wind and the Oil & Gas industry. The latest development for reducing the cost of installation and noise emissions has resulted in the Vibro Lifting Tool (VLT), a Lloyd’s Register certified lifting appliance, which can be configured with an upending option. This can significantly save on the installation time by reducing the number of handling operations. The VLT is able to pick up a stored pile (up to 1600t), upend it to a vertical position, lift it to the correct position and drive it down (correcting verticality while driving if necessary) in one single handling operation without the need of a gripper or seabed installation frame. Due to the modular design the equipment can be deployed for the installation of a large range of piles, from small anchor piles to large XXL Monopiles and anything in between.

CAPE Holland was founded in 2002 as a family business with five generations of experience in the areas of construction, foundation and piling equipment. Since 2014, CAPE Holland has become part of the FoundOcean Group, a privately held UK-headquartered company with offices in Europe, the Gulf of Mexico, South East Asia, India and the Middle East for rapid deployment of specialist grouting and piling equipment. The group comprises FoundOcean Ltd and CAPE Holland.