Specialist port and marine engineering company Seward Wyon recently completed a project to source, procure, relocate modify and commission a used rail-mounted harbor crane for the A&P Ship repairs company in Falmouth UK.
The crane, which was originally manufactured by Liebherr in 1985, was located and procured from the Steinweg Terminal in the Port of Hamburg. With a lifting capacity of 45 tonnes, the crane weighed in at approximately 650 tonnes.
Seward Wyon engineers produced the lift plans and lifting configurations, designed and fabricated the lifting points and sea fastening brackets, which in turn were installed onsite in Hamburg by Seward Wyon site personnel.
The crane was partially disassembled, with the heaviest module weighing in at 375 tonnes, and lifted on to Big Lift’s heavy lift vessel the Happy Diamond, ready for one of its first European voyages. The journey from Hamburg to Falmouth took approximately 48 hours.
The A&P workload within the No. 2 Dry Dock meant that the vessel’s arrival date was critical in order to minimize disruptions to the dock schedule. Due to the tidal restraints at Falmouth, the vessel was initially berthed on the County wharf, where the majority of the sea-fastening restraint system was removed to minimize the time in the No. 2 Dock where the crane was to be finally erected.
With Tug boat assistance, the Big Lift vessel’s entry, unloading and departing operations at A&P Falmouth No. 2 Dock were critical. Operations had to be completed within a maximum six-hour tidal window due to the draft of the vessel. The ship had to enter the dock at high tide to allow a hull clearance of approximately 1m to the dock gate cill.
With additional flood lighting provided, the operations were started at 0500hrs and were completed in approximately five hours, with the vessel leaving ahead of schedule and returning to County wharf for the discharge of the smaller and lighter components.
Following the crane being lifted directly on to its new rails at No. 2 Dock, Seward Wyon then carried out the final erection of the 174-tonne tail ballast and 32-tonne jib rear sliding ballast, with the jib being erected via a tandem lift by the two A&P mobile cranes. Some modifications to the crane were also carried out, including retrofitting new storm anchor pins to suit the new crane rails, installing a new wireless anemometer, supplying and fitting new hoist ropes, and adapting the crane’s long travel limits (etc.) to suit its new environment. The crane required a new 10.5Kv power supply, which was installed via A&P Falmouth. “This is the third major replacement crane installation Seward have handled for us over the last 10 years and they have all been good jobs hence the repeat business, something A&P Group really value ourselves,” said Peter Child, A&P Managing Director. “This Liebherr crane was a very complex project with purchase from Germany, logistics, HV power supply, strict time deadlines and a tight budget, and we are very pleased with the end result.”
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