William Hackett launches the safest and most efficient offshore subsea lever hoist: SS-L5 with patented quad pawl mechanism

William Hackett, world-leaders and original pioneers of offshore lifting hoists and chains, launches the safest and most efficient offshore subsea lever hoist: SS-L5 with patented quad pawl mechanism.

Lifting operations are recognised as a safety-critical activity. The International Labour Organization unveiled estimates highlighting the root cause of 59% of lifting incidents being attributed to a human factor with 33.3% being caused by equipment failure.

The safe use of lifting equipment crucially depends on minimising risk through ease of use and improved resilience to failure. In addition, equipment needs to satisfy economic and environmental imperatives.  Consequently, William Hackett recognise that it is important to continually innovate and develop their lifting solutions to address such considerations.  It was their commitment to delivering sustainable solutions that led to the development of the SS-L5QP.

The patented QP mechanism synchronises a set of four pawls, which constantly work together to minimise the time and distance travelled to the next point of engagement. This overcomes jamming and unintended malfunctions that can be experienced when using other simpler first and earlier-generation products. This helps to minimise project downtime or costly delays to work scopes, thereby mitigating risk for offshore operators and contractors.

Customer controlled field trials reveal the SS-L5 hoists were immersed 12 times over a 60-day period. It also successfully past a rigorous multi-immersion test, inspection and operation programme witnessed and verified by DNV GL.

Director at William Hackett, Ben Burgess said: “We are helping operators to make better choices and overcome purchasing large quantities of single-use hoists. The historic paradigm of single-use hoists, which are often used once and then discarded, is very expensive and not good practice from an environmental perspective.”

“The use of single immersion hoists isn’t sustainable and is representative of an out-dated practice. Customer decision-making criteria is beginning to reflect this.”

“The SS-L5 innovation is the result of William Hackett’s long term investment strategy. We’ve worked hard to create a technically-superior lever hoist that delivers improved performance, longevity of service life and economic efficiencies – thereby minimising risk associated with handling valuable payloads.”

William Hackett is a member of business development organisation, NOF, which supports the supply chain across the global energy sector to help identify new business opportunities.

Paul Livingstone, Head of Business Development at NOF, said: “The innovation that exists within the NOF membership is exceptional and the developments companies like William Hackett are making to improve operations, safety and efficiency are outstanding.”

The technical and commercial benefits of the SS-L5QP levers hoist are:

SAFETY:  Enhanced built-in failure resilience.  Patented quad pawl technology allows the SS-L5QP to operate safely should individual pawls or springs fail.  With double the number of offset pawls in a lever hoist, from two to four, the load is spread securely against the ratchet gear to provide increased safety for the user.

PERFORMANCE:  The dual action brake mechanism and intelligent inertia capability improves the user’s safety and rigging productivity in both subsea and topside applications.  The equipment is lighter in weight compared to other manufacturers’ products due to the design and quality of materials used, consequently, the SS-L5QP’s performance to weight ratio reduces the risk of injury to the user during handling.

DURABILITY:  The efficient design and quality of the materials used in the product enable the multi-immersion capability resulting in a longer service life, and the corresponding economic and environmental benefits.

ECONOMIC:  Warranted multi-immersion use can generate up to 80% reduction in capital spend on new hoists per project mobilisation.  The SS-L5QP reduces purchase, servicing and transportation costs, which delivers better cost efficiencies on projects and substantial savings for operator budgets.

PROVEN COMPLIANCE: Complies with EN 13157, American Standard ASME b30.16-2012, Australian Standard AS1418.2-1997, NORSOK R-002: 2017, South African Standard SANS 1594:2007 DNV verification for multi immersion and company standard BP (DEV-AAD-SS-SD-BP-0545)