Surprisingly Chinese
Dutch heavy winch specialist Huisman has seen its Zhangzhou facility deliver its hundredth crane, which belies the usual idea about Chinese manufacturing quality being an issue.
Frankly, Huisman has too much, quite literally, resting on the heavy lift design to let that slip.
The first of these mast cranes originated from the company’s European facility back in 1984 and they are substantially different from a scaled up version of a more standard crane: what makes them particularly useful for very heavy lifts is that the design consists of a fixed mast fitted with a rotating slew platform supporting the boom and mast head. This lends it an inherent safety feature; the load moment is carried by the mast and not by the slew bearings.
One of a pair of 1,500 tonne capacity cranes this latest is to be installed on the K-class heavy load carrier Fairmaster, owned by shipping and offshore transportation and installation contractor Jumbo: the two cranes will give the vessel a tandem lift capability of 3,000 tonnes.
By Stevie Knight
