Deck spreads & seafastening

A piece of equipment is only as good as the deck it works from. Before anything is sea-fastened, the spread has to work as a whole: where the equipment sits, how the crew move around it, how the work flows and how it all stays safe in a seaway. We engineer the deck spread first, then the seafastening that secures it and we can deliver either the whole integrated spread or the seafastening package on its own.

Deck spreads – engineering the working layout

A deck spread is the level above seafastening: it considers not just how the equipment is fixed down, but how it is used. We lay out the spread around how the operation actually runs:

• Load radius and lifting envelopes – positioning equipment, cranes and handling gear so lifts reach where they need to, clear of structure and of each other.
• Operator movement and equipment flow – how people and material move through the spread; for example, how a core travels from the drill floor to the lab or how pipe moves from rack to well centre, without crossing hazards or bottlenecking.
• Safety and evacuation routes – clear, protected access and escape routes designed into the layout, not added afterwards.
• Service routing – electrical and hydraulic runs, cable and hose routing and the interfaces between systems, planned so the spread is serviceable and the routes don’t compromise access or safety.
• Simultaneous-operations workability – laying the spread out so coupled activities can run together safely, with fewer awkward interfaces.

Seafastening – installing it where you need it

From that layout we engineer the complete seafastening package: the grillages, stools, welded and bolted fastenings and structural interfaces that carry the equipment loads into the vessel structure, analysed for the head, beam and oblique sea load cases the voyage and operation will see and certified to the recognised standards. The seafastening is designed against the as-built deck and the equipment’s real load path, not a generic tie-down.

We deliver this either as part of an integrated deck spread, or as a standalone seafastening service, engineering and supplying the seafastening for equipment you already have or for a third party’s package, with the structural calculations and compliance file to back it.

How it feeds our products and solutions

This capability sits underneath much of what we do. Any MintMech product or solution that goes to a deck can be supplied with its seafastening and its place in the spread engineered in, so a pipe handling system, a containerised unit or a complete drilling spread arrives knowing how it sits on the vessel and how it integrates with the equipment around it. It is the discipline that turns a piece of equipment into a working, installed part of a deck.