Peters & May has completed the discharge of two fast catamaran ferries from Bahri Riyadh at Eleusis, Greece, following their shipment from Hong Kong. The operation, completed on 28 July 2026, required adjustments to the lifting arrangement as the cargo approached the vessel’s crane capacity and hook-height limits.
Each ferry measured 47 metres long and 12 metres wide, weighing more than 230 tonnes. The shipment formed part of a wider voyage that also included two 90-tonne crew transfer vessels (CTVs) transported from Singapore to Montoir, France. The four vessels had a combined cargo weight of 645 tonnes.
According to Peters & May, the ferry discharge was carried out close to the cranes’ technical limits. The forward crane handled approximately 130 tonnes against 160 tonnes of available capacity at the required lifting position, while the aft crane carried around 102 tonnes against 120 tonnes of capacity.
The aft crane was also operating at its maximum radius for the available hook height, creating an additional constraint during the lifting operation.
During the first ferry operation, loadmaster Gavin Boyle identified that the stern lifting arrangement was operating at the aft crane’s limit. He carried out a ghost lift using the empty rigging before reconfiguring the arrangement with shorter lifting belts, providing an additional two metres of working hook height for the second ferry.
The shorter belts had been backloaded from Hong Kong and were unavailable to the technical planning team during the initial planning stage.
The ferries were supported on flat racks rather than conventional stacked timber towers, providing a more stable support base. An additional flat rack was positioned transversely to provide the required height for supporting tripods beneath the ferries’ overhanging bows.
The lifting arrangement was also governed by the ferries’ structural attachment points. Slings could only be connected where load-bearing bulkheads could support the loads, resulting in unequal weight distribution between the two cranes. The centre of gravity remained between the lifting points throughout the operation.
Beyond Eleusis, Bahri Riyadh completed further cargo operations at Izmir on 30–31 July and Palma de Mallorca on 8 August, where three motor yachts were discharged. The two SWATH Cat CTVs were repositioned at Izmir before their final discharge at Montoir on 16 August.
