French winch manufacturer used the Itech Mer exhibition in Lorient earlier this year to unveil its brand-new deck cranes, showing one at the event that had already been sold.
‘It’s because we do the complete hydraulic systems for many fishing vessels and we saw that often customers were buying cranes elsewhere – and sometimes there were problems marrying these to our hydraulic systems,’ said Bopp’s David Thepaut.
‘So now we have added two cranes to our product line so we can offer a full package of winches and hydraulics that includes the crane.’
There are two models of fixed-boom crane. The GDH500 has a 450kg capacity at 6.80 metres and the larger GDH1000 can handle 950kg at 8 metres. The first production GDH500 models are on their way to two new trawlers for Armament Jean Porcher being built at Socarenam in Boulogne, while the first couple of GDH 1000 cranes have gone to customers in Ireland.
‘We’re not looking to compete with companies manufacturing knuckleboom cranes,’ he said. ‘These are designed as straightforward discharging cranes so that we can offer customers a full package, and we can deliver these cranes with a hydraulic power pack and a control box.’
‘These are robust cranes, fully marinised, and we’ve listened to our customers when they have told us what they are looking for. There are also parts that are common to the rest of the Bopp range, such as the crane winch. This is similar to our gilson winch, but adapted with rollers to keep the wire spooled onto the drum.’
