German crane company Ulferts & Wittrock brings a new meaning to ‘pick and carry crane’ with an unusual approach to wind turbine erection. Instead of going to the trouble of dismantling its 400t capacity Liebherr LR 1400/2 crawler crane when it needs to move it around a wind farm, or risking catastrophe by driving with a fully erected boom, Ulferts & Wittrock uses a 130t capacity LR 1130 as an assist crane to carry the end of the bigger crane’s boom. The idea came from operations manager Rolf Diebel. The LR 1400/1 is seen here moving across a site in the Weser mountains near Höxter with 105m main boom and 28m derrick mast. A 10.5m jib had to be taken off before the short journey, and so did 55t of the crane’s 135t superstructure counterweight. This got the weight of the LR 1400/2 down to 300t. Within two hours the two cranes had together travelled 800m to the next turbine location, negotiating two 90° turns and a 6% gradient. Normally the rigging, stripping down and re-rigging would be two days’ work, the crane company said.
