CAPE Holland: Leading Offshore Piling Equipment Innovator
Vibrating out challenges
Operating as part of the FoundOcean Group and with over a decade of proven industry experience, CAPE Holland has established a trusted reputation as a leading supplier of construction and piling equipment to the offshore and subsea industries. The company was founded in 2002 by a father and son team set on extending family links within the piling sector, which began during the 19th century and although the company was established as an international piling equipment trading company it soon began to engineer and manufacture its own specialist equipment within the sector. “CAPE Holland offers piling equipment to the on- and offshore industry worldwide. We have our own fleet with hydraulic impact and vibro hammers and auxiliary equipment for sale and rent. We offer operational assistance for our own equipment, but also for 3rd party owned piling equipment,” elaborates CEO, Laurens de Neef. “CAPE Holland has its own in-house engineering department, experienced technicians with offshore experience, fully fitted workshops and even sandblasting plus coating facilities.”
CAPE Holland was previously profiled in Energy, Oil and Gas magazine during November 2014, when the company discussed the introduction of its CAPE Vibro System™. The system contains all equipment required to configure the right vibro hammer set for any project. The main components of the system are the vibro hammers, which CAPE Holland has developed in-house in response to the increasing demand for certified upending vibro equipment for handling and lifting within the offshore market. Commenting on the in-house design of the system, Laurens says: “We started from scratch which made it possible to end up with a fully Lloyd’s Register certified (CLAME)lifting appliance. The result is an unique tool which combines the vibro driver/extractor with a certified lifting and handling tool and therefore we have named it a Vibro Lifting Tool (VLT).”
Furthermore the VLT can also be fitted with an upending fork, so it can even upend the pile which means it has the ability to pick up a stored pile, upend it to a vertical position, lift it to the correct position and drive it down, whilst correcting verticality during driving if necessary, in one single handling operation without the need of a pile gripper or seabed installation frame, saving valuable time. The tool can be used to handle and drive to final penetration if the project allows this or it can be used as an ideal stabbing tool in combination with an impact hammer saving significant time on a job.
During June 2015 CAPE Holland unveiled the first Vibro Lifting Tools of the VLT system. A new recently produced Tandem CV-320 VLT consists of two CV-320 vibro hammers with a combined eccentric moment of 640kgm and provides 13,706kN of centrifugal force. The appliance is capable of handling and installing piles with a pile diameter ranging from 2800mmup to 5100mm, weighing up to 850 tonnes. “This new Tandem CV-320 VLT is to replace the tandem vibro set which Seaway Heavy Lifting (SHL) purchased from CAPE Holland in 2012 after a successful deployment during the monopile installation project of Riffgat OWF. This new set is 40 per cent more powerful and fully certified for handling and lifting. Our clients have realised the potential of having one tool for the handling and installation for projects where the piles have to be driven to final penetration with an traditional impact hammer,” Laurens details. “SHL heavy lift vessels are ideal for the installation of the very large XXL monopiles of the future and the fact that the CAPE VLT’s are modular means that they can hire additional vibros and combine them with their own tandem set to create the right configuration of installation tool, giving them a competitive edge by being able to fully utilise their own equipment.”
The portfolio of fleet models available from CAPE Holland continues to grow and through further successful projects and deployments, the company is continuing to build on its leading reputation that will see it develop new systems that offer several operation benefits well into the future. During July for example CAPE Holland successfully deployed its new CV-320 VLT-U vibro lifting tool to install four piles in subsea water depths of up to 90m. “For this first project the VLT was used equipped with the Upending option (VLT-U). It was used as a stabbing tool to pick up a stored pile, upend and lower it to the installation position and drive it to stable depth through a template. This way it was possible to install all four piles without any tool change. Negating the need for a tool change meant it was possible to install all four piles in just one 12-hour shift to the predicted penetration depths. After this, an impact hammer was brought down only once, to complete the installation process of all four piles, which resulted in a significant time saving,” Laurens concludes. “In the next 12 months we will focus on expanding our range of Vibro Lifting Tools and continue promoting the major benefits of Vibro drivers/extractors in the offshore industry and especially the added benefits of the certified handling, upending and lifting capabilities of VLT(-U)’s. In the next three to five years we will be expanding our rental fleet to be able to satisfy the expected increase in demand from both the renewables and the oil and gas industries. We also foresee that the Vibro technology will become a significant contributor to reducing cost of installation of OWF monopile foundations.”
CAPE Holland
Services: Construction and piling equipment
Issue 125 October 2015