The Swedish Navy: A non-magnetic crane – is that even possible?

The Swedish Navy needed new cranes for their minesweepers. The challenge was that some mines are magnetic and are attracted to the iron of the hulls - and cranes - of vessels and explode when they hit. To avoid magnetism the new cranes for the Swedish minesweepers could therefore not be build of iron.

The non-magnetic cranes appeared to be a challenge that no one wanted to take on, and at Hytek A/S finding a solution also demanded a strong will to think out-of-the-box. Because how do you build a crane without using iron?

The obvious solution seemed to be stainless steel for the construction but this would however, make the crane too heavy. Instead we decided to completely disassemble a standard TOIMIL marine crane and make a copy of every single part of it – in titanium. The crane was tested and delivered in compliance with no less than DNV standards for off shore cranes and approved for lifting personel.