At the ESTA awards evening held in Paris on 26th April, 2018, Sarens is proud to have received two of the esteemed awards of the year.  Benny Sarens was posthumously awarded the “Gino Koster Lifetime Achievement Award”. Sarens also won in the “Combined Techniques” category for its New Wear Crossing Project. 

Benny Sarens was honored with the “Gino Koster Lifetime Achievement Award” for his pioneering and visionary contributions to the crane and heavy lifting world. He has left behind a visionary engineering legacy and knowledge from which engineers globally have drawn for years and are likely to continue to do so. Benny Sarens started working at Sarens in 1972 and built up the technical solutions department of the group. Benny was instrumental in developing a world class technical team of experienced problem solvers. His lifetime achievement, in addition to the design of alternative lifting systems, was his leading involvement in pushing the development of the family of Sarens cranes known as “Big Benny” (the SGC 120) and Big Benny XL which is the recently-launched SGC 140. The announcement of the award saw the audiences in standing ovation and was accepted by his son, Carl Sarens. 

Sarens New Wear Crossing Bridge project won in the “Combined Techniques” category. For the project, Sarens transported and raised the striking white A-frame pylon of the Sunderland bridge made from 1,000T steel and 550T concrete. It was the first time anything of this size has been raised in this way since the London Eye was lifted in 1999.

The challenging part of the project was the time and space limitations, not only during lifting of the pylon, but also when transporting the A-frame over water directly from the Victor Buyck fabrication yard in Belgium. Most narrow space left was only 30 cm maneuvering space during maritime transportation. For the project Sarens deployed its twin barges, Jozef-Rosa and Karel-Victor, barge Louis, PJ250 jacking system, 52 axle lines SPMT K2400-ST, strand jacks, hydraulic winches and ballasting system.

The group is overjoyed on receiving both the awards and will continue performing challenging and noteworthy projects with excellence and dedication, contributing to a safe and progressive heavy lift and engineered transport industry.