Superyacht & Tender Lifting Equipment

Tender handling gear works hard but also fails expensively. Slewing, telescopic, and knuckle-boom tender cranes, davits for jet skis, rescue tenders and small craft, garage overhead gantries, and the sliding-beam cranes integrated into tender garages all carry loads over water, over decks, and occasionally over guests, and each needs thorough examination at the intervals set by the regulations.

Our team examine the full handling system, crane, wires, hooks, slings and the strops and accessories that ride with them, and proves capacity under load (usually via water bag testing) where the examination or the vessel’s history demands it, using methods that suit a marina berth as readily as a yard.

A passerelle is a retractable, hydraulic gangway used for boarding and disembarking a superyacht. Acting as a luxury “front porch”, it bridges the gap between the vessel’s deck and the dock and typically adjusts to accommodate changing tides.

During the examination, we check for the following:

• Structural Integrity: Checking for bending, cracks, or excessive twisting under load.
• Moving Parts: Inspecting hydraulic rams, hinges, and swivels for smooth operation and greasing moving parts.
• Safety Features: Ensuring non-slip surfaces are intact and that stanchions/handrails fit tightly.

Testing of superyacht passerelles (gangways and accommodation ladders) should be carried out annually and as part of the 5-year load tests required by Class and Flag State authorities for any lifting or means-of-access appliances. Testing also needs to be carried out Post-Repair or Modification (i.e. after any repairs to the hydraulic systems, structural welding, or major parts replacement).

Below decks, the lifting is less glamorous and just as regulated. Engine room gantry cranes, chain hoists and beam trolleys, padeyes and lifting points, hydraulic lifting tables and the general loose lifting equipment that lives in the engine room all require examination, and padeyes in particular are easily forgotten until a survey asks when they were last proven.

We examine and test the technical lifting inventory through the same visit as the deck equipment, proving padeyes and lifting points under load where required, and consolidating everything into one register so the chief engineer holds a single, complete picture.

Sailing superyachts add their own lifting inventory, including mast stepping cranes in the yard or onboard, boom and rigging lifting points, and the winches used for controlled lifting during rigging operations. These loads are large, the geometry is unforgiving, and the equipment often works hardest exactly when the rig is at its most vulnerable, during stepping, tuning and survey.

We examine and test rigging lifting points and winches against their duties, and where new wires, strops or slings are needed, our group supplies and tests them, including the Dyneema slings, tested and certified before they go aloft.