8 Vessel Upending Techniques for Lift Planners & Rigging Engineers

When upending a vessel or similar load, there are a number of options commonly available. A lift planner or rigging engineer must decide how best to lift the head of the load as well as the tail.  The head can be lifted with cranes (various types), strand jacks, gantries (telescoping and fixed), climbing jack systems and so on. Similarly, tailing options include nearly all of the above, as well as trailers and skid mounted tilt-up frames. Any time multiple cranes (or load handling equipment) are used to lift a load, the planning and operation becomes more involved as the likelihood for human and equipment error is increased with additional people and equipment involved. 

"Vessel Upending Techniques" is a lesson that reviews 8 proven upending options available to lift planners and rigging engineers. This one-hour lesson can be found in the Fundamentals of Rigging Engineering Program and is taught online by Keith Anderson, Chief Rigging Engineer for Bechtel Corporation, Engineering News Record's #1 Contractor on the 2014 Top 400 list. 

Mr. Anderson also serves as Program Manager for the ITI Rigging Engineering Program and instructs dozens of lessons throughout the 10 available Courses in the Program. Mr. Anderson and ITI are in the process of finalizing accreditation for this Program with ASME and LEEA.  

In this article, for the sake of time, we will dive into 3 of the upending techniques, looking at Advantages and Disadvantages. The remaining 5 techniques are described with images.

8 Vessel Upending Techniques

• Crawler Crane Tailing

  • Advantages
    • Simplicity of coordination and signaling.
    • Loads are all in the same plane as both booms.
  • Disadvantages
    • Need extended matting or prepared ground for tailing crane.
    • May need to offload the vessel before positioning tailing crane as it could be diffiult to remove trailer with tailing crane in place.
    • If you don’t get the set-up quite right, the tail crane radius may swing out as the load comes clear and the suspensions adjust.

• Crane on Outrigger Tailing

  • Advantages
    • Quick and easy setup.
    • Minimal matting.
    • Likely to be cheaper for a one-off operation than bringing in a crawler crane.
  • Disadvantages
    • This is only approporiate when the required tail movement (and load) is small enough to be accommodated by the swing motion of an economically available (and physically small enough) telescopic crane. 
    • Not likely to be economic when large tail radii are required.

• Tailing with Head Crane

  • Advantages
    • Tail crane only has to hold the tail.
    • Tail radius is minimal, so the tail crane can be minimized.
    • Minimal matting is required.
    • Makes best use of the head crane and keeps the costs down.
  • Disadvantages
    • It may be difficult to remove “conventional” trailers unless the vessel is delivered beforehand and offloaded onto temporary supports.
    • If a main lift crane using a Superlift tray is used  you cannot swing the head anywhere until the head crane has the entire weight at the completion of upending and the Superlift tray lifts clear of the ground. This is not an issue if you don’t need Superlift or use a Superlift bogie, ring crane or similar.

As discussed, the remaining 5 techniques Mr. Anderson reviews are below.

• Tailing with Tilt-Up Frame

• Lift System with Crawler Crane

• Lift System with Cross Slide

• Lift System with Trailer

• Strand Jack with Trailer

If you'd like to learn more about this lesson and others in the Fundamentals of Rigging Engineering Program, you can Demo the Online Program and receive the Program Outline.

About The Fundamentals of Rigging Engineering Program

Fundamentals of Rigging Engineering is ideal for lift planners, rigging engineers, and other key personnel who plan, execute, and oversee crane and rigging activities. To learn more, visit riggingengineering.com or call Christina Lanham, ITI Manager of E-Learning at 800-727-6355.