Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Displaying items by tag: Cranes

Three huge cranes which left Cork Harbour at the end of August have arrived at their final destination the New York area, as RTÉ News reports.

Tom MacSweeney covered the three Limerick-built cranes upon their departure from Port of Cork on board the Big Lift Baffin for their transatlantic journey.

As our own Jehan Ashmore previously wrote, the three 150m ship-to-shore (STS) Liebherr cranes represent the largest single objects ever engineered in Ireland.

Logistics for transporting the massive ‘megamax’ cranes were complicated by the presence of the Bayonne Bridge connecting New York and New Jersey, which has a clearance less than half that of their fully assembled height.

But the Big Lift successfully passed the bridge on schedule on Saturday afternoon (10 September) and the cranes will now be installed at Maher Terminals at Port Newark in New Jersey.

RTÉ News has more on the story HERE.

Published in Port of Cork

#CorkHarbour - The first of three Liebherr cranes has been loaded onto the Albatross heavy lift vessel at the Port of Cork.

As previously reported on Afloat.ie, the three 85-metre-tall cranes — each weighing more than 1,000 tonnes — are bound for Puerto Rico after being assembled from kit form at Cobh by employees from the Liebherr plan in Kerry.

Liebherr Marine has posted photos captured by drone as the first crane was loaded onto the specially adapted Albatross in Cork Harbour yesterday (Wednesday 22 February):

Published in Cork Harbour

Three cranes, each weighing more than 1,000 tonnes and 85 metres high will be loaded on to a massive ship next week in Cork Harbour bound for Puerto Rico. It will be an amazing feat of engineering and an equally spectacular sight at the Port of Cork to see the massive cargo depart Roches Point.

The cranes have been asembled from kit form having first been shipped by sea from Fenit in County Kerry to the Doyle Shipping Group Terminal at Rushbrooke in Cork Harbour.

60 employees from the Liebherr crane plant in Kerry have been constructing the massive cranes prior to their transatlantic voyage.

The specially adapted ship, The Albatross from Holland, arrived yesterday into the Port of Cork awaiting its giant cargo alongside at Cork Dockyard, as the photo below shows. Known as a 'heavy lift' vessel, the Albatross is 264.45 metres long and 42.54 metres wide, the ship has a maximum speed of 9.5 knots.

HEAVY LIFT ALBATROSS AT CORK DOCKYARDThe heavy-lift ship, Albatross, is making maritime history in Cork Harbour this weekend having arrived at Cork Dockyard to transport three huge, fully-completed dock cranes to Puerto Rico Photo: Tom MacSweeney

Tom MacSweeney in Cork Harbour adds:  It is the first time that the Liebherr crane manufacturing company based at Killarney has exported fully-assembled cranes from Ireland for which they used the Cork Dockyard facility at Rushbrooke near Cobh to assemble them over the past few months.

The ship can automatically lie level alongside the dockyard quayside at all stages of the tide during the loading operation which is expected to take 4 to 5 days. Tracks will be laid to move the cranes onto the vessel.The Albatross will then move across Monkstown Bay to Ringaskiddy deepwater port where the cranes will be bolted to the ship and she will ballast for the voyage to Puerto Rico.

Published in Cork Harbour

Marine Wildlife Around Ireland One of the greatest memories of any day spent boating around the Irish coast is an encounter with marine wildlife.  It's a thrill for young and old to witness seabirds, seals, dolphins and whales right there in their own habitat. As boaters fortunate enough to have experienced it will testify even spotting a distant dorsal fin can be the highlight of any day afloat.  Was that a porpoise? Was it a whale? No matter how brief the glimpse it's a privilege to share the seas with Irish marine wildlife.

Thanks to the location of our beautiful little island, perched in the North Atlantic Ocean there appears to be no shortage of marine life to observe.

From whales to dolphins, seals, sharks and other ocean animals this page documents the most interesting accounts of marine wildlife around our shores. We're keen to receive your observations, your photos, links and youtube clips.

Boaters have a unique perspective and all those who go afloat, from inshore kayaking to offshore yacht racing that what they encounter can be of real value to specialist organisations such as the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) who compile a list of sightings and strandings. The IWDG knowledge base has increased over the past 21 years thanks in part at least to the observations of sailors, anglers, kayakers and boaters.

Thanks to the IWDG work we now know we share the seas with dozens of species who also call Ireland home. Here's the current list: Atlantic white-sided dolphin, beluga whale, blue whale, bottlenose dolphin, common dolphin, Cuvier's beaked whale, false killer whale, fin whale, Gervais' beaked whale, harbour porpoise, humpback whale, killer whale, minke whale, northern bottlenose whale, northern right whale, pilot whale, pygmy sperm whale, Risso's dolphin, sei whale, Sowerby's beaked whale, sperm whale, striped dolphin, True's beaked whale and white-beaked dolphin.

But as impressive as the species list is the IWDG believe there are still gaps in our knowledge. Next time you are out on the ocean waves keep a sharp look out!