Naval architecture & vessel engineering

Most of what we build ends up on a vessel, and getting it there safely is its own engineering discipline. We work at the interface between equipment and ship: modifying vessels, designing the structure and seafastening that carries our systems and proving it to the marine standards. We don’t design new ships from scratch, vessel and hull naval architecture sits with the vessel’s own naval architect or yard. What we do is the modification, the analysis, the interfaces and the verification that turn an existing vessel into a working platform for the job.

What we do

• Vessel modification & repair – structural modification and repair across the size range, from re-engineering a workboat hull (ramps, deckhouses, engine beds, hull-form changes, even stretching a hull with an inserted section) to integrating major equipment spreads onto large offshore vessels.
• Jack-up hull & structure design – design and structural verification of jack-up barge hulls and self-elevating structures, to the recognised self-elevating-unit codes. See jack-up barge solutions and retrofit & upgrades.
• Moonpool systems & deployment interfaces – moonpool doors, infill panels and the deployment structures and interfaces around a moonpool, designed and modified to suit the equipment that works through it.
• Vessel structural interface – defining how equipment loads enter the vessel structure and deriving the motions and accelerations the design must withstand. Seafastening for deck-mounted equipment is covered under deck spreads & seafastening.
• Equipment foundations – crane, LARS and equipment pedestal/foundation design into vessel structure, verified to the marine lifting-appliance code with the hull interface analysed.
• Lifting-point design & lift engineering – lift points, lifting sets and mobilisation lift engineering, designed and proof/load-tested to the recognised offshore lift-point standards.
• Vessel-interface design – engineering the equipment-to-vessel interface for mobilisation onto a vessel of opportunity, including fixings, deck-load and deck-interface design and mechanical, electrical and hydraulic connections. Marine warranty surveyor and third-party verification are handled through our design verification, analysis & assurance capability.

From workboats to large offshore vessels

The same discipline scales both ways. At the small end we have modelled and modified workboat hulls and re-engineered deck-crane foundations into them. At the large end we have engineered the vessel interface and deck-fastening for a large launch-and-recovery system mobilised onto a vessel of opportunity, with the independent design and manufacture verification and marine-warranty-surveyor review that a large LARS would demand, and designed LARS and winch seafastening with full vessel-motion and acceleration analysis. Where the vessel’s own naval architecture is needed (hull, stability, under-deck structure and systems), we work to the vessel naval architect’s data and are responsible for everything from the deck plate up.

Designed to the recognised classification, marine-operations and structural codes (Lloyd’s Register CLAME, DNV marine-operations and offshore-structure standards, self-elevating-unit and ship-conversion codes, offshore lift-point standards). Figures and load cases engineered to the vessel and the duty.