China’s world-beating gantry

The world’s first fixed dual-beam gantry crane has been “christened” during a launch ceremony at the Yantai shipyard in China.

The Taisun has an official 20,000 tonne lifting capacity and is named after a sacred mountain in the Shandong Province. At the ceremony, attended by more than 600 industry guests, the gantry set a new heavy lift world record by hoisting a 20,133 tonne launching barge to 30 m, according to its builder Yantai Raffles Shipyard (YRS).

Brian Chang, YRS chairman, was presented with a witness load testing certificate by the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS).

“It will revolutionise the way large offshore projects such as semi-submersibles and FPSOs are built. By providing a perfectly safe, uniquely controllable and highly cost effective way to join super sections of up to 20,000 tonnes, the hours spent working at great heights will be significantly reduced.

“As a result, overall project man-hours can be improved by up to 2 million, overall build schedules and time-to-market shortened, and safety and quality greatly improved,” said the company.

For more on this crane see IC December 07, p7 Gantry record in China, or http://www.khl.com/news/article.asp?articleid=4828&magazineid=5