Subsea construction often requires specialised and expensive equipment to be safely lowered to the seabed and accurately positioned for installation in a reliable and cost effective way. Over the years there have been many incidents involving hooks in the offshore industry. The two most common incidents are snagging of hooks and unintentional release of the rigging from the hooks, also known as shedding.
The ‘Snap Hook’ was designed to replace the original ‘Single Point Hook’ for ROV attachment and detachment. The design included an increased nose protrusion to facilitate easy attachment of slings and master links, as well as providing the ability to release rigging from the hook. Although the ‘Snap Hook’ made it easier and quicker to attach loads using an ROV, the design increased the potential for accidental snagging.
Lifting of loads across offshore environments has highlighted the issue that under certain circumstances the rigging is released from the standard ‘Single Point Hook’ and the ‘Snap Hook’. The snagging of hooks and accidental load detachment has been identified as a significant safety hazard to diving operations when using the ‘Single Point Hook’ and the ‘Snap Hook’.
The new RUD ROV Hook has been designed to offer a product that not only meets the operational safety standards but also the speed of use requirements the industry faces, thus reducing time penalties and increased costs.
The RUD ROV Hook is a completely new design that has never been seen across the industry. It features an innovative outwards opening safety latch and a patented mechanism with only two moving parts.
The design has been tried and tested on real life subsea operations and offers a greatly enhanced degree of load security compared to traditional ‘Snap Hooks’. During testing it became clear that the RUD ROV Hook can be easily operated by a single manipulator, which significantly speeds up operations.
The RUD ROV Hook offers a safe, versatile and robust hook for subsea use. The hook is currently available as a 10 tonne working load limit capacity hook and offers a safety factor of 4:1. It is 100% crack tested and can withstand a dynamic loading of more than 20,000 load cycles according to European Standard EN 1677. The RUD ROV Hook is evidently taking the subsea lifting market by storm. Gone are the days of snagging of hooks and shedding of loads. The hook is easy to use with ROV’s and by hand which helps to reduce operation times and cost. It is being met by the industry with great enthusiasm and helping to achieve exceptional safety standards in subsea lifting.
