Heavy Lift and Offshore Fleet of the Jumbo Shipping Company

Hans Kahn (1922-2018) of the Kahn family of Holland was born on 12th December 1922 at Gottschalk in Berlin to middle class parents Walter Kahn (born 5th February 1890) and Gertrude born in 1887 at Emden. In 1940, Hans travelled from Holland via Belgium, France and Spain under the assumed identity of a Belgian naval cadet to escape capture by the Nazis in order to sail to England, where he joined the Dutch Navy in exile. Hans married Barbara McKellen (born 12th October 1924 in London) in 1946 and began trading in 1948 in the coastal trades as Kahn Scheepvaart B.V. with a start up capital of only 3,000 guilders at Rotterdam.

A contract was won to carry cattle from Friesland in Holland to Israel for the British company of Borchard Lines, the first cargoes of a long partnership. Useful business links were formed when the Borchard family introduced Hans Kahn to Herbert Fritzen of Fritzen Shipping in Emden, and the two men made business visits to the Caribbean and South America. The Borchard family and the Fritzen family of father Johannes and son Herbert later put up a large percentage of the building cost of 1.5 million Deutschmarks for the cost of the first Kahn ship, Stellaprima.

Stellaprima of 1955 was of 942 grt with a single hold and a single hatch, and equipped with four 12 ton derricks for carrying a variety of cargoes, and was launched by Abeking & Rasmussen at Lemwerder on 17th October 1955. She ran a liner service for Borchard Lines between Northern Europe and Cyprus and Israel. She then went on to carry out a series of cargoes for Hycar Lines between the Great Lakes and Europe between 1959 and 1965.

In October 1968, Jumbo Shipping B.V. was set up, heavy lift derricks often being referred to as ‘jumbo’ derricks from the name of the company. The choice of the name of Jumbo Shipping was the subject of a competition open to employees, with the prize of 25 guilders won by Arle Noorland. The new purpose built engines aft Stellanova, Daniella and Fairlift of 2,500 dwt were known as ‘A’ class vessels built during 1969/72 with adjustable ‘tween decks. They had a single hold of dimensions 46.5 x 10.2 metres, at the end of which were two heavy lift derricks of 50 tonne capacity, giving them a combined lift in tandem of 100 tons, later increased to 70 tons giving a tandem lift of 140 tons. They were equipped with a removable ‘tween deck supported on pontoons, and Stellanova carried her first cargo from Rotterdam to Buenos Aires after completion on 30th July 1970. She frequently loaded locomotives at Pier 9 in Halifax (NS) with the cargo secured after moving to Purdy’s Wharf with welded brackets and lashings.

Gabriella of 1,327 grt was completed in 1974 and two years later was shipping railway locomotives from St. John (NB) to Algiers. She was returning in ballast to pick up another shipment when she ran into a bad storm near the Bay of Fundy. The ‘A’ frame that had been used to secure her cargo broke loose in the empty hold and punctured the inner bulkhead of the doubled plated hull, causing 300 tonnes of water ballast to pour into the hold to give a dangerous list of 30 degrees. A Mayday was sent off by the radio officer and her Master decided to abandon ship using two rubber dinghies as the lifeboats could not be lowered in the very high seas. Two men jumped for the first dinghy, but missed and were drowned, while the remaining thirteen men were luckier and landed in the second dinghy and were rescued by a ship. Gabriella was towed into port and repaired for more heavy lifting.

In 1978, Jumbo Shipping B. V. had a fleet of similar small heavy lift ships in Stellanova, Gabriella, Daniella, Mirabella, Fairlane, Fairload and Fairlift. The ‘B’ class of Gabriella and Fairload of 1974 had a unique stabiliser design for lifting heavy loads up to 320 tonnes and were built by Van Diepen in Holland. The ‘C’ class of Mirabella and Fairlane of 1977/78 were built by De Groot and Van Vliet at Slikkerveer in Holland, and had combined tandem lifts of 800 tonnes. Daniella and Gabriella were named after the daughters of Hans Kahn, while the name of Mirabella was created from the first names of his sons Michael (1963), Raphael (1960) and Benjamin (1965). Fairload made a five day voyage in July 1980 transporting four long white painted cylindrical tanks from Le Havre to Valletta Grand Harbour in Malta. The gas tanks each weighed 110 tonnes and were loaded and unloaded using her 160 tonne heavy lift derricks, and then transported on low loaders from Valletta to Marsaxlok in SE Malta.

Daniella, Fairlift and Stellanova were sailing with power station heavy lifts between Bombay and Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, Great Yarmouth to Lome (Togo), and Rotterdam to Jakarta respectively in October 1978. Two years later in February 1981 they were sailing on voyages between Calcutta and Mombasa, Rotterdam and Port Harcourt, and New Orleans to the Tyne respectively, the latter to load heavy reels of flexible pipe. The size of the fleet had been increased in 1978 by two chartered vessels of 4,028 grt and 5,288 dwt in the twin screw heavy lift carriers of Internavis 1 and Internavis 2, built in 1975 and 1978 by Schulte & Bruns at Emden and the Dubigeon Normandie yard at Grand Quevilly in France, and owned by the Rothschild family of Paris. The pair had Stulcken heavy lift masts and derricks and had two separate holds, and were purchased in 1982 by Jumbo and renamed Jumbo Stella 2 and Stellaprima (2), with Jumbo Stella 2 then renamed Stellanova (2) in 1985.

Jumbo Stella 2 loaded heavy oil refinery cargo with her twin heavy lift cranes each of 220 tonnes capacity at Rotterdam on 1st February 1982 destined for Apapa Lagos and the offshore Nigerian oilfields. She was sold in 1995 to Gajah Navigation Sendirian Berhad of Kuching in Borneo and renamed Gajah Borneo with management retained by Kahn, and her name of Stellanova was given to a newbuilding completed in 1996. Stellaprima (2) was berthed at Alexandra Dock in Liverpool in 1983 loading a series of heavy units, and was sold to Wah Tak Marine in 1989 and renamed Huali, becoming Clipper Cherokee in 1993 for Phenix Maritime, and was later broken up at Alang in India. Barges JA-1 and JB-1 of dimensions 90 metres by 27 metres by 6 metres, and 55 metres by 15 metres by 3 metres were used in operations that allowed Jumbo Shipping to offer a ‘total transport concept’ of bespoke heavy lift services from factory to final destination for customers from 1994 onwards.

THE LOSS OF GABRIELLA

Unfortunately, Gabriella suffered a tragic accident during a heavy lift operation at Port Kembla (NSW) on 14th August 1986, in which two marine surveyors were killed, David Brooke-Smith of Lloyd’s Register and William Martin of Bureau Veritas.

Several other people suffered minor injuries when a heavy lift of 237.95 tonnes was being discharged over her starboard side. This was part of a cargo of 77 items of slabcaster components from the Higashi Harima plant in Japan destined for Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd. at Port Kembla. Gabriella sailed from Japan on 17th July 1986 but was forced to wait hove-to due to storms off Port Kembla before entering port. She was berthed alongside No. 2 Products Berth and had already discharged one heavy lift when a second was being lifted. The heavy item was lifted clear of the ship by the ship’s heavy lift crane but just as it was being lowered onto a trailer on the wharf a strand of wire in the forward runner snapped and when this encountered the sheave of the pulley, the entire gear gave way, with the heavy lift falling one metre onto the trailer. The force of this break rolled the ship violently to port, reaching a list of 45 degrees and stayed at that degree of list until water then entered her hold and she capsized. She was declared a constructive total loss, and her masts and accommodation block were cut off after she was raised, and she was towed out of the harbour and scuttled around 29 nautical miles East of Port Kembla in two thousand metres of water.

Daniella and Mirabella fared a lot better, with Daniella completed at Zaandam in 1969 with two masts and two derricks, each of 50 tonnes capacity. A speed of 12.5 knots was achieved from a two stroke single acting six cylinder diesel, and she was sold in 1987 and renamed Nikos II, and then in 2002 was sold to a Miami owner and renamed Johnny Lambros, and she arrived at Santo Domingo on 25th January 2013 for breaking up.

Mirabella was also built in Holland in 1977 with two goalpost masts and three derricks and had a service speed of 13 knots from a four stroke six cylinder MaK Atlas diesel. She was sold in 1996 and renamed Raben, with the existence of the vessel in doubt by 2011.

Fairlift of 1970 was sold to the same Miami owner as Daniella and renamed Yerimu for trading from Miami to the Caribbean, Central and South America. Stellanova of 1970 had been sold off in 1983, Fairload of 1974 had been sold off in 1991, and Fairlane of 1977 was sold out of the fleet in 1996.

A pair of unusual looking larger heavy lifters designed by the company naval architects entered service in 1983 as Jumbo Challenger and Fairmast of the ‘D’ class, equipped with two 500 tonne derricks and one 250 tonne derrick. The pair had the wheelhouse and accommodation located aft on the starboard side, while the port side aft was clear for long items of cargo. The forward mast was located on the port side with the aft mast on the starboard side with the navigating bridge wrapped around this aft mast.

A yellow pontoon was always deployed at their sterns on the opposite side of the ship from where loading was being performed to increase stability, and was connected to the ship via a large beam that extended through the ship from port to starboard.

A NEW GENERATION OF HEAVY LIFTERS

The Kahn heavy lifters were followed by the larger ‘E’, ‘G’ and ‘H’ classes of the bridge forward, engines aft Daniella (2) of 1989 but completed as Stellaprima (3) and renamed in 1991, Fairlift (2) of 1990, Stellaprima (4) of 1991, Fairload (1995), Jumbo Spirit (1996), Stellanova (1996), Jumbo Vision (2000) and Fairlane (2001), all of around 7,500 dwt, but with Jumbo Vision and Fairlane of the ‘H’ class having a combined lift of 800 tonnes from twin Huisman 400 tonne cranes, while the ‘E’ class had a combined lift capacity of 650 tonnes using one Huisman crane of 400 tonnes capacity and another Huisman crane of 250 tonnes capacity. Fairlift (2) transported a heavy unit from Rotterdam to Yanbu, a Red Sea port in Saudi Arabia, in September 1992, and unloaded the Australian naval minehunter Huon, lead ship of her class, in the harbour of Newcastle (NSW) in September 1995 from the La Spezia yard of Intermarine spA in a tandem lift of both of her cranes.

Large box shaped single holds allowed power station boilers, rotors and stators to be carried, and clients such as Fluor Ltd., Bechtel and Foster Wheeler found them to be very useful for worldwide heavy lifting. Jumbo Vision and Fairlane of the ‘H’ class have overall lengths of 110.5 metres, a moulded beam of 20.9 metres, moulded depth of 9.0 metres and a loaded draft of 7.7 metres.

Jumbo Vision was launched on 1st December 1999, and they were completed in 2000 at the Karadeniz Eregli yard in Turkey with a long single hold with their decks strengthened for the loading and unloading of heavy equipment. They are powered by a two stroke seven cylinder B & W oil engine of 6,662 bhp giving a service speed of 15.0 knots, and are equipped with two thrusters, one forward and one aft.

The twin screw barge carrier Callisto of 6,950 grt and built in 1983 was twice chartered between 1989 and 1994 from Gerhard Rohden K. G. of Germany and renamed Jumbo Callisto. Fairmast suffered a bad accident with her hull badly damaged while in dry dock at Subic Bay in the Philippines on 27th February 1996 when her officers and crew were hijacked at gunpoint and forced to leave their posts. The dry dock was flooded while repairs were still underway, and some temporary welding to her double bottom gave way and collapsed. The hull became twisted and the yard made further temporary repairs, but she was forced to sail around the world to arrive at Rotterdam on 21st September 1996 for permanent repairs of almost a new hull at her builders yard of YVC at Capelle den Ijssel.

In 1998, Jumbo Shipping B.V. began to use a new logo featuring an elephant on its 30th anniversary, and had a fleet of nine heavy lifters in Daniella (2) of 1989, Fairlift (2) of 1990, Fairload of 1995, Fairmast of 1983, Jumbo Challenger of 1983, Jumbo Spirit of 1996, Stellamare (ex Valkenswaard) of 1982 and purchased in 1987, Stellanova (3) of 1996, and Stellaprima (4) of 1991.

They were all very suitable for the single lifts of power station equipment and railway locomotives, with a long term contract running for ten years for the transport of railway locomotives from Halifax (NS) to the U.K. The company had offices in Rotterdam, London, Tokyo and Singapore with a Head Office in Versoix in Switzerland. Offices were opened in Beijing and Shanghai shortly after the Millennium.

Towards the end of Millennium year, Jumbo Spirit discharged a heavy lift in Sumatra loaded at Venice, while Jumbo Challenger and Fairlift were working in California, Fairmast was on a voyage from Tilbury to St. Nazaire, Stellamare was at Houston while Stellanova was voyaging from Japan to Montreal and Duluth in the Great Lakes, and Stellaprima was sailing between Durban and Kitimat in British Columbia with a heavy lift cargo.

In November 2002, Fairlane and Stellaprima unloaded two hydrocracker columns of 805 tonnes in weight plus associated oil processing equipment at Duluth on the Great Lakes for the Long Lake oil sands project in Northern Alberta. In February 2005 Jumbo Spirit arrived in Galway with heavy machinery weighing up to 180 tonnes for a large power station being built at Tynagh in County Galway.

Jumbo Offshore B. V. was set up in 2003, and a year later fly jib lifting began to increase the available height of heavy lift cranes for lifting very tall structures e.g. 37 tall reactors of combined weight of 1,500 tonnes carried from Japan to Europe during 2004.

Jumbo Offshore had completed their first project in 2003 on the Trunkline Systems Expansion Project (TSEP) on the Western Shelf of offshore Australia. This complex subsea project involved the connection of many valves and pipes of wellheads, and the placing of four large spools on the seabed using Jumbo Vision

THE LOSS OF STELLAMARE

On 9th December 2003, Stellamare, a ‘B’ class ship of 1,496 grt registered at Willemstad, capsized in the Port of Albany on the Hudson river, killing three Russian seamen who were trapped inside her hold. Two large General Electric Company (GEC) generators were being loaded onboard when a problem occurred with her internal ballast system. A blockage in the pipes and valves occurred that flooded portions of the ship with tonnes of water to compensate for the weight of the two generators in order to keep the ship on an even keel. The generators had been delivered by rail from Schenectady and the longshoremen and crew had loaded the first generator. The second generator weighed in at 304 tonnes and was being lifted at 1500 hours when the ship lurched to port and capsized. The three men who died were trapped by debris in the flooded cargo hold, and eleven more men were thrown into the icy Hudson river and survived.

A floating heavy lift crane righted the ship, which was declared a constructive total loss (CTL) and sold for her scrap value of $125,000 to an owner in the small port of Bethlehem near Albany, who returned her to service, and she continued in service until broken up in 2011. The generators were bound for Romania and Italy and were recovered, reconditioned and sent on later to their owners.

The first of four new ‘J’ class heavy lifters was completed in February 2004 as Jumbo Javelin of 12,870 dwt by the Damen yard at Foxhol, the hull having being built at Galati in Romania and towed for completion to Holland. She is equipped with twin fully rotating 800 tonne cranes on the starboard side, making her the most powerful heavy lift lo-lo ship in the world when completed. The cranes are used in tandem to give a lift of 1,600 tonnes at a maximum outreach of 28 metres.

A notable feature is the bow superstructure offset to starboard, allowing greater length for very long items such as reactor columns of 150 metres in length to be carried using the space to the port side of the bridge. The very long flush working deck area and multi level cargo hold is ideal for the transport of modular components for offshore wind farms and construction projects. She has a service speed of 17.5 knots from twin 9-cylinder M.A.N.-B & W diesels, and recently transported nine heavy foundation pieces for offshore windfarms from Flushing to the U.K.

The ‘J’ class sisters of Jumbo Javelin entered service as Fairpartner in July 2004, and as Jumbo Jubilee and Fairplayer in 2009 from the Damen yards in Romania. The latest ‘J’ class pair have twin rotating Huisman 900 tonne cranes, giving a combined lift of 1,800 tonnes when used in tandem, and their earlier ‘J’ class sisters have been similarly updated. The maiden voyage of Fairplayer was from Ortona on the Italian Adriatic coast with two long distillation cylinders, alongside of which she then loaded two coke drums, each of 600 tonnes, at Aviles in North West Spain for Port Arthur in Texas. She then moved up to New York to load giant turbines for Ireland for her second voyage. Fairplayer transported five 350 tonne buoyancy cans in summer 2012 from Pori (Finland) to the Cascade and Chinook oilfields in the Gulf of Mexico for subsea oil riser connection.

Jumbo Jubilee was launched on 15th November 2008 at the Damen yard in Galatz (Romania) and was named in honour of the 40th anniversary of the company. The maiden voyage of Jumbo Jubilee was made to Vitoria in Brazil to load two ship loaders of 1,250 tonnes for the nearby port of Tubarao five miles away across the bay. The load had to be carefully manoeuvred into Tubarao ore port, and discharged into position to avoid the conveyor belts of the iron ore loading operations. She then set a world heavy lift record of 1,992 tonnes in August, 2009, and continued her record heavy lifts with offshore oil equipment for Technip in Ghana. In April 2010, she completed the loading, transport and discharge of four 700 tonne spud cans from Dubai (UAE) to Arendal in Norway. The spud cans were discharged into the water and handed over to two tugs, which brought them to the quay at Dubai. A special shackle weighing 1.5 tonnes with a diameter of 70 feet and a height of 26 feet was used to safely handle this heavy load. After safely transporting the spud cans to Arendal, they were discharged one by one in single lifts, with the crew safely ballasting both the ship and the spud cans.

Fairpartner transported a J-Lay Tower of 1,800 tonnes in weight in 2006, and was used from October 2007 in a two year contract to move 24 oil reactors, each of 1,200 tonnes, from Rotterdam to Ras Laffan port for the Qatar Shell Pearl GTL project, giving a total of 28,800 tonnes of project cargo moved in two years. In November 2009 she then loaded two barges, one of 1,330 tonnes and the other of 1,100 tonnes, at Nantong in China for Rotterdam. The barges were stacked on top of each other, and their length of 135 metres made them the longest items ever moved by Jumbo Shipping.

Fairlane at the end of 2008 was laying a disconnectable turret mooring in the Exmouth oilfield of offshore Western Australia for client Apache Energy. The water depths were between 1,100 and 1,200 feet with the turret connected to a FPSO by nine anchors. Flexible flowlines, which connect to two subsea manifolds and the production wellheads, were attached to the buoy. She then delivered two stainless steel converters, each weighing 420 tonnes, to the sulphuric acid plant of Ambatovy Nickel at Tamatave (Madagascar) from Japan at the beginning of 2009. She had also installed 14 mooring piles and five mudmats in the Kikeh Field in offshore Labuan in 2008 in water depths of up to one thousand metres for an oil spar of client Technip Malaysia.

Stellanova (3) built in 1996 unloaded oil related heavy lift equipment in 2007 at Jean Reinhart Quay in Le Havre consisting of three parts of a cracking tower destined for the Total petrochemicals plant. The loads weighed in at 162 tonnes, 68 tonnes and 54 tonnes with dimensions of 32.2 metres by 7.35 metres by 5.6 metres and were lifted on to road trailers for the final journey to the petrochemical plant. She suffered badly crumpled bows in a head on collision with the Laker bulker Canadian Prospector on 12th October 2002. The bulker was repaired at Port Weller Dry Docks, and Stellanova was towed from Pointe aux Trembles in Montreal anchorage to a dry dock at Les Mechins, Quebec. After repairs were completed, she continued loading locomotives in Canada at Halifax (NS) for export to Brazil until her last cargo was loaded in March 2012 after the closure of the locomotive factory.

Jumbo Challenger suffered a bad accident at Los Angeles on 22nd February 2007 while conducting offloading operations. One of her two heavy lift cranes gave way when discharging a 638 tonne petroleum reactor on to the wharf with the reactor ending up resting partly on the ship and partly on the wharf. The reactor was destined for the BP oil refinery at Carson in California, but no injuries occurred to personnel, and after repairs Jumbo Challenger sailed on her next assignment.

Jumbo Shipping B. V. had a fleet of 14 heavy lift ships in 2009 named Daniella (2) of 1989, Fairland of 2001, Fairlift of 1990, Fairload of 1995, Fairmast of 1983, Jumbo Challenger of 1983, Jumbo Spirit of 1995, Jumbo Vision of 2000, Jumbo Javelin of 2004, Jumbo Jubilee of 2009, Fairpartner of 2004, Fairplayer of 2009, Stellanova (3) of 1996 and Stellaprima (4) of 1991. A very unusual heavy lift load of a submarine was transported from France to Malaysia in 2011, and Jumbo Challenger loaded project cargo at Misima in Papua New Guinea. She was sold for breaking up later in 2011, with her sister Fairmast also sold for breaking up at Alang in India in March 2011, but was also reported under the name of Fairy at this time, probably for her last voyage.

Daniella (2) worked for well over two years on her last major project, the major Pluto LNG project for Woodside Petroleum in Western Australia. She began heavy lifting in 2008 from Laem Chabang and Port Sattahip in Thailand, Port Klang in Malaysia, and Melbourne for Dampier, and worked with Fairlift over this long period of time. Daniella (2) on her eleventh and final voyage for the project lifted 256 items of equipment including pre-assembled structures and pipe racks weighing up to 240 tonnes. Fairlift had made a dozen similar voyages by this time in 2010 and then completed the last five voyages for the project by the end of 2010. Daniella (2) then continued worldwide heavy lifting, and arrived at Halifax (NS) on 4th December 2011 to load a power generation unit for Albany (NY). She was at Nassau in the Bahamas in March 2012 with a cargo comprising a heavy red painted long jibbed crane, and an expensive super yacht, and she was sold for breaking up at Aliaga in Turkey in April 2014.

Jumbo Shipping B. V. successfully transported in July 2011 51 monopiles from Rostock to Barrow in Furness for the Walney Offshore Wind Farm 2. Jumbo designed and engineered all of the saddles for the monopiles, with Fairpartner making six voyages carrying eight monopiles at a time, two in the hold and six on deck. The largest monopile weighed in at 806 tonnes and measured 68.0 metres in length and 6.5 metres in diameter.

Jumbo Shipping B. V. moved to a new headquarters building in Schiedam in 2013, and had the same sized fleet of 14 heavy lift ships in the second half of that year, consisting of four ‘J’ class in Jumbo Jubilee, Jumbo Javelin, Fairplayer and Fairpartner, two ‘H’ class in Jumbo Vision and Fairlane, three ‘E’ class in Daniella (2), Fairlift and Stellaprima, three ‘G’ class in Jumbo Spirit, Stellanova and Fairload, plus the two new super heavy lifters of the ‘K’ Class on order and to be named Jumbo Kinetic and Fairmaster. Jumbo Sprit built in 1995 was sold for breaking up at Aliaga in Turkey during 2015.

The keel of the first of the ‘K’ class was laid on 20th July, 2012 at the Brodospas yard at Split in Croatia but a lengthy delay was caused by a contractual dispute between owner and builder, and she did not sail from her builders yard until early 2015, and her Huisman heavy lift cranes were then lifted onboard and load tested at the Huisman production facility at Zhangzhou in China on 25th April 2015. She was followed by the completion of her sister Fairmaster later in 2015.

The two new ‘K’ class ships have two new super heavy lift cranes on the starboard side each of 1,500 tonnes capacity at an outreach of twenty metres giving a combined lift of 3,000 tonnes when used in tandem. They have an overall length of 152.0 metres with a moulded beam of 28.0 metres, a loaded draft of 8.4 metres, deck space of 3,250 square metres and service speeds of 17 knots. The length of the deck is ideal for transporting long wind turbine towers, refinery petroleum reactor towers, and distillation cylinders. The ‘K’ class are an evolutionary step forward by Jumbo Shipping B.V. and are certified to Ice Class 1A for extra versatility.

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