Swedish manufacturer MacGregor Cranes has won orders for its biggest ever ship cranes, with a safe working load of 320t.
Designated as GLH range, these crane represent a new market for MacGregor. The first GLH orders have been placed by Polish/Chinese shipping company Chipolbrok. Two cargo ships being built at Shanghai Shipyard in China will each have four cranes: two 320t GLH cranes, and two 50t GL cranes. For these installations the GLH cranes will have a 35m jibs and will be used for container handling. They will have a 40t capacity at maximum outreach.
The cranes will be made in China where Macgregor has formed a partnership with Luzhou Machine Works, based in Nanjing and owned by China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC). Nanjing is now the main manufacturing base for MacGregor’s international crane production.
‘Although the GLH heavy-lift cranes are a completely new design, they benefit from the same basic philosophy developed during long experience of our GL container cranes,’ said MacGregor marketing manager Hans Ohlsson. ‘This experience includes component selection, and how the whole system works together. The main difference is that a heavylift crane is much more complicated as it incorporates a higher degree of redundancy, such as a double-pump system.’
The biggest crane in the new GLH range has a maximum load moment of 6,500tm, equating to a 320t lift at an outreach of 16m.
