ACE Winches has secured a £1.6million contract from Bluestone Offshore, for the design and manufacture of two comprehensive winch packages for use on the offshore support vessel, Greatship Maya.
This is a record win for the north-east firm whose roots lie in the Scottish fishing industry.
Each winch package comprises an 18.5-tonne hydraulic drum winch, 300kW (kilowatt) containerised electric hydraulic power unit, a central control cabin, interconnecting pipework package and associated wire rope package.
The Bluestone project is being managed by ACE Winches from its ultra-modern Towie Barclay Works, and all equipment will be comprehensively tested on the company’s 750-tonne capacity hydraulic test bed facility, prior to delivery to Singapore in March 2011. The system is scheduled to be deployed on the Greatship Maya, before it departs Singapore at the end of May.
The vessel is on charter to Bluestone Offshore and partner, GC Rieber Shipping Asia, and is being upgraded for use in the deep waters of the Atlantic Ocean, offshore Brazil.
The two winch packages are designed for launching and recovering a seabed frame, and are fitted with geotechnical investigation equipment through the ship’s moonpool for working in operational water depths to 2,500m.
CEO of ACE Winches, Alfie Cheyne, described the contract as a valuable manufacturing order. 2011 is forecast to be an excellent trading year for the company and Bluestone signifies an important stepping stone in gaining a firmer foothold in the Asia Pacific region.
Cheyne added that the company’s hire equipment division continued to trade well internationally, despite global economic uncertainties.