Lovemore Bros Heavy Rigging Team Lift This Soon To Be Luxury Floating Restaurant
A 67 ton catamaran, named Ocean Solace, was recently purchased by a client in Rwanda and is set to be converted into floating restaurant by Easy Living Interiors.
The catamaran will be given a whole top to bottom by Durban based Easy Living Interiors, from changing the engine, redoing the interior, as well as two new hulls. “The catamaran’s glass fiber has broken and we are already cutting the two new hulls and laying them out at our factory. The new hulls will also give the catamaran more buoyancy,” says Zain Kram from Easy Living Interiors.
Lovemore Bros Heavy Rigging team did the lift of this soon to be luxury floating restaurant.
“These types of lifts are always challenging as you have to deal with many environmental factors such as wind and tide, which can affect the lift. The operator from the floating crane and the Lovemore team worked extremely well together under demanding circumstances to ensure the lift went safely,” says Shane Hawyes, Heavy Rigging Manager.
The floating crane that did the lift named, Indlovu meaning “elephant”, has a capacity of 200 ton and is only one of two vessels of this type in the country, with the sister vessel based in Cape Town. Captain of the vessel, Simon Bailey has been the Captain of this remarkable vessel for over 14 years.
“We have a very experienced crew that is on board the vessel and our crane operator has over 30 years experience working on floating cranes. The lift of the boat was not done under normal conditions as the wind was blowing quite strong, however, with our crane operators experience and Lovemore Bros team we were able to do the lift safely,” says Bailey.
Part of the overhauling of the Ocean Solace will see her going from the current jet drive engine to a shaft propeller engine to give her a higher top speed. The project is set to take one year to complete
“Once the catamaran is complete, myself and 3 crew have the pleasure of motoring her up to Rwanda – a journey that will take about 3 weeks,” says Kramm.
