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Failure of ROV lift umbilical winch brake – Update

In the Safety Flash 08/01 (Failure of ROV lift umbilical winch brake) we reported an incident concerning an uncontrolled ROV umbilical winch run off involving a MacArtney CORMAX unit manufactured by Norlau. The member company has updated us on this issue noting that the manufacturer has now acknowledged that there is a design problem and that until they can provide a technical solution the manufacturer recommends that that winches should be operated at low speed only. This is a short term measure; the long term solution may involve modifications to the winch system.


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