ASCOM SpA has begun constructing what will be the world's largest travel lift. The machine will be able to lift 1,700 short tons, a figure that puts it in a class of its own among boat hoists and reflects the size of the vessels that yards are now being asked to handle.
Based in Formigine near Modena, Italy, ASCOM has reported a healthy order book through 2027. Two other large machines are scheduled for delivery next year, namely 720-ton and 850-ton boat hoists to be installed in Italy and India, respectively.
A deliberate step up in scale
For Andrea Cuoghi, ASCOM's managing director, the project is as much an engineering statement as a commercial one. “Building the world's largest boat hoist is a statement about what ASCOM's engineering team is capable of,” he said, adding that the lift “pushes our hydraulic and structural design well beyond our previous benchmarks”.
A travel lift of this size has to negotiate different problems from smaller models rated at a few hundred tons. The loads on the frame, the demands on the hydraulic circuits and the stresses at the wheels and slings are significantly greater, meaning that a boat lift of this size must be designed and engineered in its own way and cannot be achieved just by scaling up an existing model.
ASCOM is more than up to the task, however. The company has run its own engineering department since it was founded and it carries out structural calculations using finite element analysis, with drawings produced in 2D and 3D, using Inventor 3D modelling software and computer-aided design.
Built in-house, from plate to finished machine
ASCOM manufactures everything at its own premises. Its 9,000 square metre site in Formigine is home to automatic submerged arc welders, a high-definition plasma cutter, CNC lathes, and booths for blasting and painting. Keeping production under one roof matters on a project like this one, since the structural steel, hydraulics and electrics all have to work together as a single system and any mismatch is easier to resolve when the same team is responsible for each stage.
Quality checks run through the manufacturing process. They include non-destructive testing of welds, coating thickness checks and test runs of the hydraulic circuits, including over-pressure tests. ASCOM holds ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 certification, and its cranes carry the CE marking under the European Union’s Machinery Directive. ASCOM is also happy to welcome all customers to the manufacturing facility in Formigine during the production of their lift.
Over fifty years of lifting
The company’s history dates back to 1972, when Gian Franco Schedoni left light steel fabrication to found a business building overhead cranes with a team of experienced engineers. Its first boat hoist followed about ten years later, delivered to a customer in Croatia. Since then, ASCOM has delivered thousands of cranes and lifting machines to more than 50 countries, serving marine work and industrial customers such as steel mills, infrastructure projects and mining operations.
Marinas, boatyards, shipyards and coast guard bases make up the marine side of the business, with the yacht and superyacht yards being the customers most directly affected by growing vessel sizes. As new-build and refit projects grow longer, wider and heavier, the shore-side equipment has to keep up. If a yard cannot lift a hull out of the water, then they cannot service it and they will lose business to a yard that can lift it.
What the order book suggests
While ASCOM’s 1,700-short-ton lift is setting a benchmark, their 720-ton and 850-ton lifts bound for Italy and India are certainly more evidence of shipyards working to keep up with superyacht requirements. The next couple of years’ production schedule is full and the company has thrown down the gauntlet to its competitors.
Whether the market for such large hoists will remain limited to a handful of projects or could grow into something more sustained will become clearer as the machine is completed and put into service.
Yards that expect to handle very large vessels over the coming decade can contact ASCOM through its website at ascom-italy.it to learn more.
