Glossary
Terms & Glossaries of Shipping and Trading
Heavy Lift Vessel
Heavy Lift Vessel is an item specifically designed to be self-sustaining with heavy lift cranes, to handle unusually heavy and/or out-sized cargoes.
A heavy lift vessel (HLV) is a vessel with a specific crane that has a large lifting capacity of up to thousands of tonnes. Large and heavy subsea structures such as templates may require HLVs to perform lifting. The lifting capacities of most HLVs range between 500 and 1000 ton (454 to 907 metric ton), whereas crane capacity on normal construction vessels is below 250 ton (226 metric ton). An HLV’s stability and sea-keeping abilities are its most important characteristics. Figure 5-10 illustrates a typical heavy lift vessel.
