Page 85: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (September 1996)

Floating Crane Titan Delivered To Panama

The 1941 German-built floating crane Titan (also known as

Herman the German), a landmark in Long Beach, Calif., since 1948, has been sold to the Panama

Canal in preparation for the clos- ing down of the Long Beach Naval

Shipyard. The crane will be used for maintenance work on the canal and its lock doors. Before the crane was moved to Panama, it was completely refurbished, which took close to one year to complete. Due to the limited crane capacity available in

Panama, it was necessary to deliver the crane while fully erect, as reassembly upon arrival was not an option. A wet tow of the fully erect crane was considered too risky (a sister crane capsized and sank during a wet tow across the English Channel) and the dry transport option, using a self-pro- pelled heavy-lift ship was pur- sued.

In order to confirm transport feasibility, a detailed structural analysis of the crane structure was performed by Argonautics

Marine Engineering of Sausalito,

Calif. A complete survey was done to measure the dimensions of all beams of the crane struc- ture. A model containing more than 1,500 beam elements was built to analyze the behavior of the structure when subjected to dynamic loading during the transport. The analysis showed that internal seafastings, some strengthening and a boom sup- port were required to ensure acceptable stress levels in all rel- evant members of the crane struc- ture. All calculations and proce- dures were reviewed by

Matthews-Daniel Company of

Houston, who also acted as marine surveyor on behalf of the underwriters. The transportation contract was awarded to SeaTeam

Heavy Lift of Oslo, Norway, and on May 19, Titan was loaded on

Sea Swan by means of the float- on method. Upon completion of the seafastening operation and receipt of the surveyor's certifi- cate of approval, the heavy-lift ship departed Long Beach on May 22. The ship arrived in Panama on May 31, where Titan was safe- ly offloaded and delivered.

AmClyde Announces Two Crane

Orders For Japanese Market

AmClyde Engineered Products, Inc. completed its contract to build a 700- metric-ton marine crane and celebrated the completion with a commissioning ceremony in Tokyo Bay, Japan. The order, valued at more than $13 million, includes the barge-mounted crane, pile- driving equipment and barge anchor winches.

This project represents the first time a

Japanese construction company has pur- chased large, custom-engineered crane equipment from an American manufac- Pictured is the AmClyde 700-ton marine crane which was recently delivered to Japanese contractor Murazumi in Tokyo, Japan.

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IN CRANE BARGES. "Very little maintenance."

Joel Smith, of R&D Maintenance Service operates a new 54' x 160' crane barge with two Deere gen-set engines. He also uses two Deere powered compressors elsewhere in the project. 'To my knowledge we haven't had to do anything but routine service on any of them." "Seven years old and the engines run with no problems."

Smith likes the way even older Deere engines keep delivering the performance he needs. "The compressor engines have been in service for 7 years now, and they still work like the new ones. They just keep running. They give us the dependability we need on projects like ours."

IB Marine •toHNosrej Engines

John Deere engines from 70-300 hp (52-224 kW) are being used on more workboats of all kinds every day. Talk to the people who use them and find out why.

Circle 249 on Reader Service Card turer to be fully designed and built in the U.S. and shipped to Japan for use in the Japanese home market.

The crane is now in use by

Murazumi Construction Company, performing pile driving and heavy lift work for port, bridge building and other construction work.

AmClyde designed the crane and mooring equipment at its corporate headquarters in Saint Paul, Minn., and performed the manufacturing in Duluth, Minn., and in the New

Orleans, La., area.

AmClyde has also been awarded a similar contract by Mitsubishi

Heavy Industries for a 1,600-metric- ton crane which is intended for

Japanese marine contractor

Fukada. This order, valued at more than $26 million, will be delivered on a turnkey basis later this year.

Fukada will reportedly use the crane for Japanese infrastructure work, including port and bridge building, as well as offshore marine salvage work.

For more information on AmClyde

Circle 28 on Reader Service Card 85