PALFINGER has completed its first major refurbishment jobs since the outbreak of the COVID-19-pandemic.
Royal Caribbean Group awarded the company a contract to service 18 lifeboats and 20 winches for ‘Allure of the Seas’, the first cruise ship to drydock after the lock down in spring.
Working with a global team, PALFINGER’s US based cruise service experts were finally able to attend ‘Allure of the Seas’ after this year’s spring drydock season had come to an abrupt halt due to the pandemic.
Eleven technicians from the US service office travelled to Naventia’s shipyard in Cádiz, Spain, to join the five LSA and seven refurbishing technicians from PALFINGER’s Spanish operation.
The team refurbished the canopies on 18 lifeboats, which can carry up to 370 people each, and conducted the five year inspection of the boats and the release gear. This included cleaning and maintaining the release hooks, as well as inspecting the boats, according to MSC.402 and other regulations required by class and flag.
In addition, the service team re-piped 20 winches. The work was undertaken in only 30 days.
“Manpower, schedules and locations are battles we are used to fighting in our daily business. COVID-19, though, posed an entirely new challenge. Nonetheless, our perseverance during this difficult time has prevailed.
“Slowly but surely, we were able to resume our work after the lock down, starting with the first successful service job for ‘Allure of the Seas’,” said Josh Lozano, PALFINGER’s Florida-based Operations Manager.
“Having completed this job, we utilised our PALFINGER Italy office for a cruise drydock in Palermo, Italy, and the PALFINGER Singapore office for another one in Singapore. In addition, with the help of PALFINGER UK, we have also been able to complete three ‘five-yearlys’ and five annual inspections of boats and release gear,” he concluded.
