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Crane Takes the Slow Boat to China
01 Jul 2007
A £4m gantry crane which was standing idle at the inward end of Felixstowe’s Trinity Container Terminal for more than a year has finally been returned to the manufacturers in Shanghai for repair.
The crane, which stands more than 30m high and can lift twin containers up to 85 tons, was damaged when the 367m ultra-large container vessel ‘Gunvor Maersk’ made contact with it on departing the quay.
The rubber tired ship to shore gantry crane (RTG), which was delivered in November 2005, had not yet been commissioned when it was knocked off its wheels in March 2006. It was one of a batch of RTGs supplied to the Suffolk port by Zhenhua Port Machinery Company (ZPMC) of Shanghai.
The Port of Felixstowe, which is owned by a subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa, the Chinese multinational conglomerate, is the UK's major container port and in recent years it has been equipped with more than 30 of ZPMC’s gantry cranes. This was one of the largest in the port, capable of handling containers stowed 22 wide.
The crane was shipped back to China on the 24,156 grt heavy lift ship Zhen Hua 5, which had delivered a new batch of cranes to Rotterdam port. The ship is one of a fleet of ten specialist vessels owned and operated by ZPMC to deliver their cranes to ports in all continents. The company says it is the only crane manufacturer to operate its own fleet and this ensures it can deliver its products at reasonable prices, on schedule and with short lead times.
The cranes are delivered and returned in completely assembled form. Loading is a delicate operation dependent on a computerised ballasting system and to survive the nine week journey the cargo is specially braced against bad weather and heavy seas.
ZPMC claims to be the world’s largest manufacturer of cranes such as quayside container cranes，rubber-tyred gantry cranes (RTGs), bulk material ship loaders and unloaders, bucket wheel stackers and reclaimers，portal cranes and floating cranes. The company also builds engineering vessels and large steel bridge structures．
To date the company has supplied more than 1,650 RTGs, 1,000 quayside container cranes, and numerous non-standard large port machinery. ZPMC has also converted 18 bulk cargo ships into specialized vessels for transporting large container cranes and heavy structural pieces．
The company has six manufacturing bases in China and is constructing a large port machinery production base on Changxing Island, at the mouth of Yangtze River.
By Graeme Ewens
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