Record breaking quay cranes arrive in UK
The arrival of Britain’s largest ever quay cranes at DP World’s London Gateway terminal was always going be challenging, “but the ETA at one point was almost changing hourly”, Sheila Armstrong of Inchcape Shipping Services (ISS) tells MJ.
Manufactured by ZPMC the new cranes weigh in at around 2,000 tonnes each, and are the first in the UK to be able to lift four containers at once. However, of greater significance is the fact that at 138m they stand taller than the London Eye. This in itself created something of an issue. These three cranes sitting up on the deck all the way from China meant a huge windage for the Zhen Hua 26, ZPMC’s massive heavy lift ship, and it hit its first delays due to stormy weather in the Bay of Biscay.
Ms Armstrong says that the ISS team were getting emails every couple of hours with a change in the predicted arrival time, which obviously made a difference to a project which had been in planning since October of last year. On one side Harry Corkerry of ISS had almost continual contact with the captain. On the other was the London Gateway facility, which had to be advised on the vessel’s progress. There were also the coordinating of pilots, tug assistance and berthing parties – so any changes meant reorganising quite a few different schedules.
“No sooner had one email arrived saying that delays might mean 24 hours late, another was sent saying the ship had made up some time,” explains Ms Armstrong. However, when the ship got to the English Channel it found heavy going against even more storms, which cut the vessel’s speed down to around 2 or 3 knots “and the email came in that it wouldn’t make the high tide”, she says.
Despite the day’s delay, the thorough planning paid off. “It’s a very complex operation and, as always, the devil’s in the detail” says Ms Armstrong. Routine but crucial information needed to be available such as confirming which side to berth the vessel and of course the tidal passage calculations had to be made in unison with harbour masters and port authorities to allow safe berthing of the 234m, 49,060 dwt ship.
The Zhen Hua 26 finally came in on 1 March, with three tugs in attendance. The vessel was guided in with one tug astern and two at the bow.
Then came easing of the heavy-lift vessel up and down the berth to get the cranes discharged at high tide onto the specially strengthened sections of the quay. Xavier Woodward of DP World explains that as these cranes are too big to be lifted conventionally, rails were installed reaching all the way down to the side of the ship, which link up with the crane’s main gantry rails. “A set of pulleys and counterweights were set up to pull the cranes out onto to the rail gantry system and onto the dock,” he explains.
However, it wasn’t just the size of the vessel that added to the difficulty of the task. As the cranes came straight from Shanghai, the vessel and its cargo had to be declared both to European Customs and the local UK inbound system. The process didn’t end there, as a report was also required for the port health authorities certifying the ship’s sanitation condition and the crew’s medical status.
Finally, the last part of this very intricate task was to organise the ship’s departure on an appropriate tide. The port is now awaiting a final pair to complete first set of supersize cranes on yet another heavy lift ZPMC ship, giving London Gateway the ability to reach across 25 rows of containers and lift up to 80 tonnes per crane at a time.
