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1. A marine lifting vessel or catamaran comprising:
two buoyant hulls, each hull being provided with static buoyancy; a rigid working deck having a top, an underneath, two sides, a bow aspect and a stern aspect, the deck comprising hull beams; a plurality of intermediate jointed beams arranged in a parallel array and securing a first of the two hulls to a first side of the deck, and securing a second of the two hulls through an opposite, second side of the deck, the deck being movably and symmetrically supported along each of the first and second sides from an adjacent one of the first and second hulls by the plurality of intermediate jointed beams, each intermediate jointed beam being comprised of a hull beam and a deck beam pivotally joined together at their adjacent ends and having a substantially horizontal axis of rotation, each intermediate jointed beam thereby forming a lifting joint on one of the first and second sides of the deck; the non-adjacent ends of each intermediate jointed beam being fixedly attached to one of the hulls and to the deck respectively; and wherein each lifting joint shares a common axis of rotation with the joints of other intermediate jointed beams; and an actuator provided for each lifting joint to, in use, forcibly change an angle between the hull beam and the deck beam at the lifting joint; all actuators being controlled so that, when in use, a height of the rigid deck in relation to a water line can be altered by forcibly causing the angles of a plurality of the lifting joints to change; thereby either lifting the deck higher above the water line, or lowering the deck to or below the water line. |
