Landing, placing & retrieving

Putting something down on the seabed gently, in the right place and getting it back without a fight are control problems we already solve in drilling. The same weight-on-bit and touch-down methodology that lands a drill bit softly, lands a structure or a tool softly and the same tension control that places it, breaks it back out of the seabed on recovery.

What we engineer

• Soft landing by tension control – winding the constant-tension setpoint below the load weight so the load settles gently; on touchdown the controller sees tension drop and trims through heave – a controlled landing, not a drop-and-bump. It’s the direct cousin of automatic weight-on-bit (AWOB) in our Active Heave Assist.
• Placing & stability – managing settlement, preventing tip-over on a slope and holding correct tension through tidal cycles so the placed object stays put and the line neither snatches nor goes slack.
• Retrieval & breakout from seabed suction – raising the setpoint to break suction, then controlling the violent release as it lets go: cushioned end-of-travel, our own ratchet-valve arrangement that gives breakout force on the up-stroke and resists rather than springs back and buoyancy-assisted recovery.
• Shock & overload protection – long-stroke shock-absorbing reeving protects against splash-zone snatch and sustained overload (e.g. a vessel drive-off with a tool stuck), bringing everything to the lowest-energy state safely. See overload protection systems.
• Heavy lift & jacking – for moving and supporting heavy objects in confined or awkward places, drawing on our jacking systems and heavy-lift engineering.
• Recovery you don’t need a specialist for – the landing and breakout sequences can be automated from our manual control systems, so the operation is repeatable rather than reliant on a single expert.

Designed to the recognised marine-operations and lifting standards. Control logic supplied manual or automatable; figures engineered to the duty.