383results about "Anchor handling/lashing" patented technology

Provided are systems, methods and techniques by which a wind-powered energy generating platform, secured to an anchor, can pull (or winch) itself beneath the surface of the water and thereby avoid most of the significant effects of storms and waves. In more particularized aspects, a variable-buoyancy anchor is utilized, thereby facilitating the construction and transportation of the entire assembly.

A method is disclosed for deploying a suction pile anchor in which flood valves are opened on the top of a suction pile and the suction pile anchor is off loaded from the anchor boat and lowered it to the sea floor. The suction pile anchor is set down and the rate of feed is adjusted to match the rate of self-penetration. An ROV with pump capability closes the flood valves on the top of the suction pile and attaches to the pumping port of the suction pile. The pump of the ROV operates to draw down the suction pile to full depth and brings the first load line connection and the attached first end of the load line well below the mudline while the second load connection at the second end of the load line is supported above the mudline. The ROV disconnects from the pump port and connects a mooring line to second the load connection. Another aspect of the present invention is a suction pile system having a suction pile with an ROV compatible pressure port and a flood valve at the top. A load support system includes a first load connection on the side of the suction pile with a load line connected to the first load connection. A second, ROV accessible load connection is provided at the distal end of the load line.

FIG. 7 shows an air cannon system loaded with a launch canister containing a prop-fouler. A pressure vessel (28) contains an inlet including a poppet valve (100) that, upon command, can be selectively placed in either a one-way flow position to permit charging of the pressure vessel or otherwise opened to trigger rapid discharge through pressure equalization with the ambient environment. The air cannon may include multiple splayed barrels or a single barrel (158). A launch canister (202), realized in the form of a tube, has a driving plate (350) that closes an end of the launch tube. The driving plate is the first point loaded into the barrel. Within the launch canister (202) a first portion of a floating prop-fouling line is stored. The prop-fouling line, such as made from Dyneema®, has at its ends two drogues that, upon entry into the water, fill with water to produce drag resistance to movement of the prop-fouling line. To avoid undue stress on canopy panels of each drogue and to avoid twisting of shroud lines (312) to the canopy, a rotating shackle (310a, 310b) acts as a coupling point between the shroud lines (312) and the prop-fouling line. Only one drogue (306), its associated coupling and a selected length prop-fouling line are loaded into the launch canister, with the other drogue and its rotating shackle (310b) loaded into a cradle (166). Upon firing, gas expansion causes the rapid acceleration and ejection of the launch tube (202) and generally straight line deployment of the prop-fouling line (302).

An apparatus for installing subsea components includes the use of a motion compensator to counterbalance and offset load on the component and lowering wire caused by movement of the vessel as a result of waves and wind.

A freefall-type windlass includes appropriate gearing for moving the windlass spool in a retrieve direction to wrap anchor cable thereabout or to permit the anchor to drop by gravity thereby unwrapping the anchor cable from the spool. A governor gear is incorporated into the windlass to restrict the rate at which the spool can rotate when the anchor is being paid out thereby avoiding entanglement of the anchor cable and malfunctioning of the windlass.

Provided are a variety of variable-buoyancy structures, such anchors, together with methods and apparatuses for fabricating the same in the water. Generally speaking, such methods and apparatuses use a variable-buoyancy platform-based mold, initially floating, that includes multiple forming cells for fabricating the resulting variable-buoyancy structure. As a result, the variable-buoyancy structure produced has multiple corresponding structural cells having open bottoms. However, the structure may be fabricated so as to include a flexible or rigid container within some or all of such open-bottom cells.

A wireless remote control system enables precise control of a yacht, or other vessel, from virtually any point on the yacht. A hand-held transmitter includes various switches for controlling the engines, thrusters, and / or anchor winch. A receiver, mounted on the yacht, receives signals from the transmitter. The receiver generates outputs that are connected to the existing electronic controls of the yacht. Thus, the receiver is connected in parallel with the conventional electronic controls of the yacht, and the system acts in addition to, and not instead of, the conventional control system. The system can thus be installed on existing vessels without modification of such vessels. An acoustic alarm signal is generated by the receiver when radio communication between the transmitter and receiver is severed.

Apparatus and methods of monitoring mooring lines of an offshore drilling rig, with the apparatus including a communication system in communication with a global positioning system, providing position coordinates of the apparatus at a first point on the line, and also includes an inertial navigation system supported by the frame, providing position coordinates of the apparatus at a second point on the line, by double integration with respect to time of inertial accelerations measured by the device as it is moved from the first point to the second point. Correction at the second point is provided by obtaining at the second point, depth, position relative to magnetic north, and deviation from vertical.

The invention discloses a novel torpedo anchor with an expandable anchor head. The novel torpedo anchor mainly comprises the anchor head composed of four conical plates, a guide rod, an anchor body, an anchor tail cover plate, a mooring ring and the like, wherein the four conical plates in the anchor head are hinged with the lower edge of the anchor body; the lower ends of the conical plates are connected with a steel cable; the steel cable is guided to the other end through a pulley on the anchor body and is tied to the mooring ring; and when the anchor body penetrates to a specified depth, the conical plates can be expanded by pre-tensioning the guide rod. By expanding the conical plates of the anchor head of the torpedo anchor, the stressed area of the anchor body is increased, therebyenhancing the bearing capacity of the anchor body; a tensioning device is relatively simple and easy to manufacture; and installing and tensioning processes are relatively simple and easy to operate.

A system wherein a vessel (12) is moored by catenary mooring lines (14, 15, 16) that include polymer cable lengths (30) that can stretch under tension, which indicates the amount of polymer stretching. In the absence of polymer line stretching, a measured actual drift or excursion of the vessel from its initial position (as determined by a GPS system) would result in a predetermined nonstretch inclination (graph 50) of the top (42) of a first mooring line (14) from the horizontal. If the inclination is greater than the predicted nonstretch inclination, this indicates that the polymer line has stretched, with the amount of stretch indicated by the increase in inclination over the predicted nonstretch inclination.

A rope handling system for an offshore vessel for handling of synthetic rope (3) for heavy lifting and deployment operations offshore, the system comprising multiple winch drums (11) adopted for housing a predetermined length of rope (3), a spooling system (13, 17) to spool in and spool out rope on the drums (11), a transfer system comprising of sheaves (14, 21, 22) for leading the rope (3) between a drum (11) and a traction winch (15), the traction winch (15) comprising three or more sheaves (30), where the sheaves are arranged so that rope may be arranged from one sheave to the next substantially following a common tangent of the two sheaves and so that the rope rests against about half the circumference of each sheave, and where each sheave operated by an independent motor (32), and where a rope stopper (4) is arranged downstream of the traction winch relative to the drum (11) upstream of the traction winch, is described. A method for handling rope during heavy lifting and deployment operations, and a method for loading rope onto the system are also described.

Anchor for mooring of buoyant marine structures. The anchor comprises an elongated shaft with a mooring line attachment that is rotatable around the full circumference (that is, a full 360 degrees of rotation) of the anchor shaft. The lower end of the shaft comprises nose section, while the upper end comprises a tail section. A plurality of fins are attached to the nose section and tail section, and extend radially outward from the anchor shaft. While the number of fins may vary, one presently preferred embodiment has three fins in each section of the anchor shaft. The anchor is preferably configured (via design of the nose and tail section fin areas, shapes, etc., and the location of the mooring line attachment along the anchor shaft) such that less soil resistance is created on the nose section than on the tail section under the influence of a mooring line load, so that the anchor will rotate slightly about the mooring line attachment point under the applied load while penetrating deeper into the soil underlying the seabed.

The invention discloses a ship automatic mooring device and a ship. The ship automatic mooring device comprises a fixing column, a mooring assembly, a driving device and a controller. The fixing column is provided with a forward step part, and the mooring assembly comprises a mounting cylinder and a plurality of clamping claws. One ends of the multiple clamping claws are rotatably mounted at the front end of the mounting cylinder and provided with clamping positions close to each other and unbuckling positions away from each other. When in the clamping positions, the multiple clamping claws are used for being clamped with the step part of the fixing column, so that the mooring assembly and the fixing column are fixed. When in the unbuckling positions, the multiple clamping claws are used for being unbuckled with the fixing column. The driving device is mounted in the mounting cylinder and drives the multiple clamping claws to rotate to enable the multiple clamping claws to be switchedbetween the clamping positions and the unbuckling positions. The controller is electrically connected with the driving device and controls the driving device to operate. According to the technical scheme provided by the invention, the ship can be automatically connected with a wharf, and automatic mooring of the ship is achieved.

A securement assembly is provided. A support has a lower end and an upper end. The lower end is coupled to the securement assembly. A spear has a leading end and trailing end with a central extent between the leading and trailing ends. A cylindrical member has a passageway slidably receiving the spear between the leading and trailing ends. Adjustment components couple the cylindrical member to the upper end of the support. The adjustment components are adapted to move the cylindrical member and spear between any of a plurality of orientations. The plurality of orientations include a generally horizontal orientation for storing and transportation and a generally vertical orientation for deploying and use.

This publication discloses a method and a winch system for powering a winch handling loads at an end of a line associated with a winch drum, the winch being powered by means of one or more electric motors and one or more hydraulic motors via a gear, in that said one or more hydraulic motors are operated when the load in the line exceeds a predetermined load level for taking care of quick hauling in or paying out the line to compensate for vertical motion of the winch, for example vessel due to waves, and the output shaft(s) of said one or more hydraulic motors are connected to the drum shaft through combination of a sun wheel, planet wheels and parallel wheels. Both a system and use of the invention are disclosed.

The present invention relates to a remote-controlled anchoring and unmooring system used in unmanned barge, and aims at solving the technical problem of wireless remote-controlled automatic control in anchoring and unmooring system. Operators emits the relative working command by a wireless remote controller, the signal is received by a receiving antenna of a receiver, and is disposed and restored to the corresponding working command which is transmitted to a PLC controlling system by a signal wire, so a diesel generating set and a anchoring and unmooring engine are controlled by the PLC controlling system according to the command and the control program, thus realizing the startup, the moving and the stopping of a long-range remote-controlled diesel generator, and also realizing the anchor hauling and the anchor putting of the anchoring and unmooring engine. The system can realize the startup, the stopping and the operational monitoring of the diesel generating set, a series of operations such as anchor putting and anchor hauling can be automatically completed by the anchoring and unmooring engine according to the remote control command. The working condition of the diesel generating set, the anchoring and unmooring engine, a cable stopper and a brake can be clearly known according to various feedback signal indicator lights on the remote controller.

A method is disclosed for monitoring the position of a floating object. The method starts by receiving as input at least a position of the floating object, and an orientation of the floating object. A horizontal distance between the floating object and an anchor coupled to the floating object is then calculated. A position of the anchor is then calculated from the position of the floating object and the orientation. An area is set based upon the position of the anchor, and it is determined whether a present position of the floating object is within that area. An alarm signal is provided when the present position of the floating object is outside the area.

The invention provides an anchor for an ice surface. The anchor comprises a supporting module, a feeding module and a spindle module and is characterized in that the feeding module is fixedly mounted on the upper end face of a supporting base through an electric cylinder fixing seat at the end of a servo electric cylinder, and the upper end face of a lower base of the spindle module is fixedly mounted on an output shaft of a spindle motor. By spindle rotation and downward feeding movement for perforating the ice surface, retractile claws extend outwards to be embedded into an ice layer, manual participation is avoided in a fixing process, and accordingly labor saving, high efficiency and stability in fixing are realized.

The invention discloses an autonomous anchor dropping control method and system of a driverless ship. Whether anchoring is appropriate or not is judged according to the environment state of the selected anchor ground, the state of the ship, the weather and sea conditions, the actual environment and the state of the ship are judged according to the range where parameters belong, anchor dropping isconducted by selecting different anchor dropping modes and methods under different situations, the optimal anchor dropping effect is achieved, and intelligent anchor dropping of the unmanned ship is achieved. Autonomous anchor dropping is conducted through anchor dropping equipment, artificial intervention can be reduced, the anchor dropping efficiency is improved, quick and accurate anchor dropping is achieved, and safety of the ship within the anchoring time is improved.

The invention discloses a chain stopping device and a windlass, and belongs to the technical field of anchor moored positioning of ships and offshore platforms. The chain stopping device comprises a chain stopper and an anchor chain wheel rotatably mounted on a frame of the windlass, the anchor chain wheel is provided with a plurality of claws along the circumferential direction of the anchor chain wheel at intervals, the chain stopper comprises a base and a stop arm, the base is mounted on the frame of the windlass, the stop arm is movably mounted on the base and mutually matched with the claws, and one end of the stop arm is abutted to one of the claws when the stop arm is positioned at a first movable position, so that the anchor chain wheel keeps static. The claws of the anchor chain wheel of the windlass are retained by the chain stopper, so that the anchor chain wheel is static, and an anchor chain is stopped. The chain stopper directly contacts with the claws of the anchor chain wheel instead of contacting with the anchor chain, so that the anchor chain cannot be damaged. The chain stopper is directly mounted on the frame of the windlass and not fixed on a deck (or in a cabin), so that the space of the deck (or the cabin) can be saved.

The invention relates to a crane (10) for handling of chains, wires, shackles, messengers, etc., onboard a vessel, where one or more cranes (10) is arranged on or adjoining the deck of the vessel, and where each crane comprises a base part (12) with an associated main jib (14) that is arranged to be driven by a number of pressure cylinders (26). At least two rotary work jibs (16,18) arranged to be driven separately by associated pressure cylinders (28,30) are arranged to the outwardly extending end (15) of the main jib (14), and tools (34,22,24) are arranged to the outwardly extending ends (17,19) of said work jibs (16,18), for the mutual handling of said chains, wires, shackles, messengers, etc.

Cutting device, method and use are for cutting of a line extending from a floating vessel. The cutting device is structured for placement on the vessel. The cutting device comprises: at least one guide structured for directional steering of the line past a cutting area for the line; and at least one of the following cutting-promoting devices: at least one induction coil device directed inwards toward the cutting area and structured for heating, hence weakening, of the line within the cutting area; and at least one moveable cutting knife with an opposite contact surface directed inwards toward the cutting area and also structured for cutting of the line within the cutting area.

An anchor bra provides an easily removable and replaceable cover over a protruding boat anchor, thereby protecting other boats and people from damage by an exposed anchor. The anchor bra is preferably formed of a buoyant and pliable marine grade plastic that covers a boat's anchor when it is raised. The anchor bra is secured in place by adjustable straps that are fastened to the boat's gunwale or railing. The anchor bra is made in various sizes to accommodate various anchor shapes and sizes.

The invention relates to a fixed multifunctional manipulator which comprises a mechanical device, a storage rack, a hydraulic system and an electric control system. A base assembly in the mechanical device is connected with a slewing tower through a slewing support bearing on the base assembly, a main arm is movably hinged to the upper portion of the slewing tower, the front end of the main arm is movably hinged with a hoisting arm and a multifunctional arm, and a multifunctional head is mounted at the front end of the multifunctional arm. A main arm variable-amplitude oil cylinder is movably connected between the main arm and the slewing tower, an operating arm variable-amplitude oil cylinder is movably connected among the main arm, the multifunctional arm and the hoisting arm, a multifunctional head expanding and retracting oil cylinder is movably connected between the multifunctional arm and the multifunctional head, a hoisting winch, a tow hook and a tow hook oil cylinder are mounted on the hoisting arm, the hoisting winch is used for hoisting, and the tow hook is used for hooking unstressed cables. The fixed multifunctional manipulator is capable of completing various complex operations such as anchoring, towing, hoisting and salvaging, high in adaptability to operating environments and extremely high in integration and intelligent degree.

The invention relates to ships, and discloses a ship mooring gear which can automatically and synchronously finish mooring and anchor dropping and achieve the effect that the buoyancy force of the ship anchor can be increased when weighing anchor, and the mooring operation is convenient. The ship mooring gear comprises a ship anchor, a berth sucking disk provided with an air exhaust port, a mechanical automatic transposition three-way valve, a bidirectional air pump and a wire spool which can drive the bidirectional air pump to rotate, wherein the ship anchor comprises an anchor body, a gas bag and an anchor cable which is used for connecting the anchor body with the wire spool; the bidirectional air pump is formed with two gas inlets / outlets; the mechanical automatic transposition three-way valve comprises a valve body, a valve element and a transposition spring; the valve body is formed with a first port, a second port and a common port; a pressure limiting valve which is opened toward the first port is arranged between the first port and the common port; the gas bag is connected with the second port; the common port is connected with one of two inlets / outlets; the first port is connected with the air exhaust port. The ship mooring gear solves the problems that the anchor weighing operation is strenuous; the mooring operation is troublesome; the mooring and anchor dropping operations cannot be automatically and synchronously finished.

An anchoring system for a boat includes a pair of anchor fixtures, each having a base and a tube carried by and extending across the base. A first of the anchor fixtures is mountable proximate the peripheral edge of the vessel with the tube oriented to extend in a generally horizontal direction. The other, second anchor fixture is mounted exteriorly to the transom of other surface of the hull such that the longitudinal axis of the tube extends generally vertically. The first anchor fixture accommodates an adjustable pole holder that has a stem for selectively engaging with the first anchor fixture to provide anchoring, transporting and stowed conditions. A sleeve is interconnected angularly to the stem for holding a first pole, which may be operated by adjusting the pole holder to engage the bottom of the body of water. A second pole is received by the tube of the second anchor fixture to likewise engage the bottom of the body of water such that the boat is anchored thereto.

A freefall-type windlass includes appropriate gearing for moving the windlass spool in a retrieve direction to wrap anchor cable thereabout or to permit the anchor to drop by gravity thereby unwrapping the anchor cable from the spool. A governor gear is incorporated into the windlass to restrict the rate at which the spool can rotate when the anchor is being paid out thereby avoiding entanglement of the anchor cable and malfunctioning of the windlass.

An anchoring system is disclosed having a rode of predetermined length; a plurality of indicators located on and displaced at regular intervals along said length of said rode; wherein said intervals correlate deployed rode lengths to a set of anchoring conditions. Using the system, a watercraft operator can readily determine whether a proper amount of rode has been deployed to anchor the watercraft according to acknowledged standards.