Liebherr heavy-duty crane loads offshore wind monopiles in Rostock

The TCC 78000 lays one of 72 monopiles, each weighing about 800 tons, into the Rostock harbor basin. [Liebherr]

The new TCC 78000 heavy-duty gantry crane at crane manufacturer Liebherr’s Rostock, Germany, facility — Liebherr-MCCtec Rostock GmbH — loaded 72 foundation piles for Denmark’s largest wind farm between May and September 2020.

Commissioned by EEW Special Pipe Constructions GmbH in cooperation with Vattenfall, this was the first loading for an external customer carried out by the Liebherr TCC 78000.

Delivery of the monopiles to the construction site had to be carried out just in time. The pace for the loading in Rostock was set by the progress of the installation ship Svanen at Denmark’s Kriegers Flak offshore wind farm site in the Baltic Sea.

“We are pleased about the successful completion of the loading activities,” says Heiko Mützelburg, Managing Director of EEW Special Pipe Constructions. “With Liebherr we have a strong and reliable partner at our side and are convinced that we will continue to move great things together in the Rostock seaport in the future.”

Loading the monopiles was no everyday job even for the experienced TCC 78000 heavy lift team. This was because the monopiles were loaded directly into the water at berth 15 in Rostock’s overseas port and then towed by two tugs to the wind farm construction site.

In order for the massive monopiles to have sufficient buoyancy, their two open ends were sealed with specially manufactured sealing caps, or plugs by Van Oord Offshore Wind Germany GmbH, which is also responsible for the construction of the wind farm on the site. Plugging the monopiles took place at a specially provided 7,640-square-foot Plug Installation Area (PIA), on the Liebherr site.

After sealing, the now floating monopiles were transported to the berth and loaded into the water with the TCC 78000 over the quay wall. The slinging of the load on the TCC 78000 was carried out with the professional support of Liebherr employees, in the form of instructors and crane drivers under the supervision of the Liebherr Lifting Supervisor.

Two deep sea tugs, in constant rotation then towed the monopiles about 70 nautical miles to the wind farm.

While EEW SPC GmbH, based in the Rostock overseas port, has been the first cooperation partner to use the TCC 78000 and its staff for cargo handling, early last month, the TCC 78000 Heavy Lift Team was able to book its second external order. A steel construction weighing 260 tons was lifted from a ship onto a barge for Krebs Korrosionsschutz, also based in the Rostock overseas port.

Now interest in the TCC 78000 is growing beyond Rostock’s borders.

“The lifting capacity of the gantry crane with the optimum conditions for heavy-duty handling at our location is in demand. We are also increasingly handling supra-regional and international customer enquiries,” says Udo Wosar, Head of Heavy Lift Management at Liebherr-MCCtec Rostock GmbH.