The Port of Oakland has been adding capacity which will help relieve rail backups at Long Beach. Like everything else these days, container cranes are made in China. They use a purpose built ship which can lower its deck so the cranes can pass under the 220 foot bridge clearance.
Thought some of you would like to see a picture.
…Wow…What a close fit…Wonder how such a bulky and high center of gravity load made it across the ocean safely…Especially if they encounterd any high seas…
Great Picture…
Nice photo.
stay safe
Joe
Saw a Discovery Channel program on that ship…cant for the life of me remember her name.
She is designed to sink, the deck drops below water level, they float what they want onto it, then pump the water out of the ballast tanks, and she floats up under the cargo, lifting it up out of the water…
They are the folks who brought the USS Cole back, the Cole fit on the deck of this lady, cross wise some, but still, a war ship sitting on another ship…
The program showed them moving the Cole, and a oil driling platform, some bridge parts…rather a interesting concept.
Ed
If I recall corectly, the ship has a lower keel line and foldable stabalizer fins under water to balance the load out.
Very interesting. Do they have to wait for stable weather patterns before crossing the ocean. It would seem to me that in very heavy seas the cranes could cause stability issues.
The program I saw said it really didnt matter…this ship is pretty huge…and very stable.
As was mentioned above, it has fins under the water line for satbility and guidance…
Look at the photo shown, thats one big ship.
Ed
They had to anchor off Drake’s Bay North of the Golden Gate for a few days of high seas (surfers had come from as far as Australia to ride 30 foot waves nearby). The cranes are 240 feet tall crossing the ocean and have to be lowered somehow to 210 feet to clear the Bay Bridge.
Mast height of Tall Ships were near 200 feet, they must have been far more top heavy. I’d like to see them unload these things.
YIKES!!! Close Clearance!
Think I saw the one Ed was talking about.
Very interesting.
Amazing what can be done.
…I didn’t realize that is the same ship that transported the USS Cole back to the US…I did see a program relating to that. Believe the Cole sat on the support of that ship at a slight angle as it was just a bit long to sit totally parallel to the carrier ship. What an engineering marvel…! But the sad thing in my mind is they can build it in China…arrange such an extreme method of carrying it across the Pacific ocean and bring it to the US…CHEAPER than we can do such here in this country…!! Sad…
Yes the Discovery show said the ship to transport the cranes was also made in China. I guess this proves the old adage that money talks (made in China) & BS walks. [:)]
The ship that carried the USS Cole was the M/V Blue Marlin, it is now the world’s largest heavy transport carrier after modifications in 2004. It has outgrown it’s indentical sister ship the M/V Black Marlin. They are owned by Dockwise and are the largest in a fleet of fifteen transport carrier ships including the Dock Express ships.
The ship in the picture does not appear to be any of the Marlin class ships but rather one of the Dock Express class ships. The Dock Express ships are designed to be able to adjust to the height of a dock and the load is rolled onto the ship and the same procedure in reverse for unloading.
The ships are completely controlled by computers that are fully redundant and use a program called Autoload. Autoload determines how and where on the ship the cargo has to be loaded and has complete control of the stability of the ship throughout the voyage. There are sensors all over the ship constantly feeding information to the computers.
Richard
The picture in today’s New York Times shows the cranes passing under the Golden Gate Bridge with 20 feet to spare. The caption says that later it passed under the Bay Bridge with 5 feet to spare. It also says the crews had to wait (it doesn’t say how long) for the tide and the surface of the water to calm.
Wow !!! very impressive.
Yea. Why could we not build those cranes in place?
Yes I recognize the engineering marvel in the transoceanic voyage of such a large load but… we should as the USA been able to bid, contract and build the darn things ON SITE without having to use a ship to bring it in from china of all places.
because then you would have had to use Union Labor, and that would have driven costs up 300%. That is why we lose so many jobs to China, we have the people to do it, but they want a certain wage. Instead they get no work.
Brad
I hear you. Wait until the day China decides no longer to provide cheap labor. Eventually they will experience the same wages our unions will require and every nation that depends on them for 10 cents on the dollar economics will suddenly not be able to afford anything.
All that money spent in the transport across the pacific ocean and all the expertise in making the items discussed here and the time involoved probably will come out to the same as if American Union labor actually built these cranes on site.
I dont have access to any kind of information regarding how much the price tag is for these nice units ready for work. It is my theory that the costs would not be much different if you compared and contrasted China Built versus Union USA built.
I feel strongly about exporting jobs overseas. A certain amount is ok but too much will return to hurt us bad someday.
Wander why they didn’t send them in parts and assemble them here?
A little late but CNN had a piece on it yesterday [:o)]
I saw the ship that brought in the cranes for the new Maersk terminal, and I think they had 4 on that one. Pretty impressive. I’d hate to think what their insurance is like though.
Dave
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