Offshore staff
NORWICH, Norfolk — LDD, a brand in Acteon’s Engineering, Moorings and Foundations division, was granted a patent for its novel mooring line tensioning tool in January.
The Rocksteady tensioning tool is a subsea mooring line tensioning system designed to simplify the installation and replacement of mooring lines on floating offshore assets.
The method supports efficient offshore operations and levelized cost of energy by using a single tensioning system for the entire field. Using a single pull-in and winching operation for connection, the tensioning tool zips up mooring lines to final tension using a removable and reusable winch, which the company says is saving millions in capex for floating offshore wind.
LDD says the key benefit of the tensioning tool is that it does not require any external tensioning interface and no tensioning equipment is left in the system. This means a single rental Rocksteady tensioning tool is required to tension an entire field of floating wind turbines, and the two halves of the Rocksteady tensioning tool are drawn together by a surface winch to make a quick connection under final tension quickly, easily and repeatably.
Additionally, no chain stoppers or tensioning systems are needed to be maintained on the offshore asset. The mooring lines attach to padeyes. Expensive and heavy fairlead systems are not required.
The rental of the Rocksteady tensioning tool is included as part of the installation service and the only component left behind is a type-approved Rocksteady subsea mooring connector.
