Heaviest object lifted at sea

The crane vessel Saipem 7000 (Italy), broke the offshore weightlifting record when it transported a 12,150-tonne (13,393-ton) single integrated deck (SID) from a heavy-transport carrier to the Sabratha platform in Libya’s Bahar Essalam field in October 2004. The lift took just four hours to complete, helped by near-perfect weather conditions in the Mediterranean Sea. The lifting capacity, from two 140-m-long (459-ft) 15,600-hp (11,630-kW) fully revolving Amhoist cranes, is 14,000 tonnes (15,432 tons). The semi-submersible Saipem 7000 was laid down in 1985 (with the name Micoperi 7000) and completed in 1987. It measures 198 x 87 m (646 x 285 ft) and has a maximum displacement of 172,000 tonnes (189,600 tons). The record was set using the vessel’s anchor system to keep it in place, but in July 2010, the onboard computer-controlled dynamic positioning (DP) system was used to lift the 11,600-tonne (12,786-ton) deck of BP’s Valhall rig – the heaviest weight ever lifted using DP. The larger semi-submersible crane vessel (SSCV) Thialf has a maximum lift capacity of 14,200 tonnes (15,652 tons) but has only ever achieved a lift of 11,883 tonnes (13,098 tons). As of 2011, Saipem 7000 was the second largest crane vessel in the world after Thialf.