Reed & Reed completes warship lift

Woolwich, Maine-based crane rental firm and contractor Reed & Reed recently hired out two of its Manitowoc 16000s with operators for a 1,000-ton (907-tonne) lift at the Bath Iron Works shipyard.

The two Manitowoc 16000 crawler cranes were brought in to assist in the lift of a deckhouse from a barge and then set it on the hull of a US Navy next-generation DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer warship. Weighing in at a total of 992 tons (900 tonnes), the lift was the heaviest ever carried out at the shipyard.

The two Manitowoc 16000s were set up to lift at their full capacity, requiring the use of MAX-ER attachments, boosting their capacities to 440 tons (400 tonnes). The crawler cranes were rigged with a 157 ft (48 m) boom, an Epic control system and a closed-loop hydraulic circuit system.

The deckhouse was lifted from a barge to 89 ft (27 m) in the air and held in place for three hours. Twelve nylon straps held the deckhouse while the barge was moved out from underneath it and the ship, which weighed 13,228 tons (12,000 tonnes), was floated into place underneath. Finally, the cranes lowered the 155 ft (47 m) long by 60 ft (18 m) tall deckhouse onto the ship’s hull. The completed vessel weighed nearly 14,330 tons (13,000 tonnes).