Lankhorst Tow Line Monitoring Offers Live Load Feedback
Lankhorst Ropes is enabling tug crews to receive ‘live’ feedback on the loads experienced by their towing lines using its Sureline real-time rope tension monitoring system.
Tug crews can now see, and instantly respond to, the loading on the tow rope. The pen-shaped Sureline sensor is easily installed in the core of the Lankhorst rope in around one minute, ahead of the towing operation. Via an on-vessel tablet display, it provides crews with the ability to precisely monitor the performance of each rope, including rope tension, rope angle, slew angle and peak loads, as it is being used. In this way, Sureline helps the tug master avoid over-tensioning the tow line above their preset limit.
Developed by UK based Sensor Technologies, the system is available to Lankhorst Ropes customers under an exclusive rope manufacturer agreement.
Jacco van Snippenberg, sales director Towage & Salvage, Lankhorst Ropes, said: “Until now tug operators have had limited capability to assess remaining rope service life such as visual inspection and destructive testing of a rope sample. As a result, tow ropes may be retired earlier than necessary or used beyond their safe operating limit. With Sureline, we’re moving from static test data to a real-time, dynamic measure of the rope in use, giving a more accurate measure of rope usage and service life.
“Access to real-time rope usage data means that we’re now able to review a rope’s length of service, time under load and peak loads, allowing operators to maximize rope service life and plan rope retirement to minimize any service disruption.”
The Sureline sensor is inserted into the rope before use. Battery powered, the pen-shaped sensor can monitor and report up to 10 datapoints per second and when calibrated the sensor is accurate to +/-5%. Multiple sensors can be used on different ropes and monitored on the single display. In the event a rope exceeds its safe level and alarm is shown. All rope usage during towing is recorded by the Sureline system. Sensors can be recovered from the rope after usage for recharging.
