THREE cranes have been smashed by ships in two separate incidents on opposite sides of the world.
Last month two cranes at Sri Lanka’s main Jaya Container Terminal were seriously damaged when a ship chartered by the Bengal Tiger Line collided with them, The Island newspaper reported. Damage to the port was estimated at around $200,000, according to the report.
In December, shortly before Christmas, a car carrier from the Wallenius Lines of Sweden crashed into a harbour crane in the Danish port of Fredericia.
The Swedish vessel had just unloaded a number of new cars imported into Denmark, and was due out of the harbour under pilot command. The vessel made a small change of direction causing the ramp at the stern to swing over the pier. According to the pilot, the ship barely touched the crane, but it caused it to wobble and then collapse vertically before tumbling round on the pier and breaking up.
The vessel escaped with barely a scratch. There were no injuries, either, despite the fact that debris was thrown as far as 100m, since all workers and operators had left the pier shortly before.
Fredericia Harbour’s crane manager, Søren Krog, said nothing could be salvaged from the wreckage. ‘Everything inside the crane was three feet from its original position, and not even the operators seat could be saved as it went through the ceiling of the cabin. There is nothing at all which can be used.’
Krog added: ‘We had just spent a considerable amount of money on refurbishing the crane for the future increase in the traffic in our harbour, so this is very annoying.’
It is likely that the 40t Aarhus Maskinfabrik (AMF) harbour crane will be replaced with a mobile unit to join the two Demag mobile harbour cranes already owned by the port. ‘We need to clarify with the insurance company what we can do,’ said Krog.
