Konecranes shipyard crane built in Tri-City on its way to France

The project of building one of the biggest shipyard cranes in Europe, which involved many companies from Tri-City (Poland), is coming to an end. On Saturday, 16 October, a gantry crane (the main load-bearing beam) intended for the largest French shipyard was towed from the port of Gdansk on a heavy-lift barge, together with some of its other components.

In 2019, the French state-owned shipyard Chantiers de l’Atlantique, known as the largest in France and one of the largest in Europe, as well as being one of the world’s few builders of large luxury cruise ships, including the world’s largest passenger ships today, has decided to equip itself with a new gantry crane with a lifting capacity of 1050 tonnes.

The construction and delivery of the new ‘Goliath’ class gantry crane was entrusted to the leading Finnish company Konecranes.

The construction was then entrusted to subcontractors in Poland. The Grupa Przemysłowa Baltic Sp. z o.o
(Energomontaż Północ Gdynia (EPG) and Baltic Operator in Gdańsk) mainly produced the main parts of the structure:

The girder (main support beam) of the crane was made at the Gdansk Shipyard (Baltic Operator). The weight of this element (according to various publicly available sources) is 1600 to 1700 tonnes, it is over 137 m long and 12 m high.
The crane supports (“legs”) were built at the Energomontaż Północ Gdynia plant on the premises of the former Gdynia Shipyard.
The crane trolleys (with hoisting winches) moving along the girder were assembled by the Port Technical Plant in Gdynia.

Key works on the construction and transport of the crane elements between the production facilities in the ports of Tricity and to France, involved several other companies, including:

Trend Projekt Sp. z o.o. (transport of heavy objects, main contractor for all transshipments and transports with the crane girder at the head, from land to barge-pontoons and between barge-pontoons, as well as on barge-pontoons between ports in the Tricity and the final transport to France)
Elpo F.U. (e.g. weighing and determination of the centre of gravity of a crane girder);
Portowy Zakład Techniczny Sp. z o.o. and Sarens Polska Sp. z o.o. (supply and operation of SPMT Kamag and Scheuerle heavy-lift multiwheel platforms used for the transport of heavy components, such as crane girders, within the production facilities and from the quay to the offshore barge pontoons);
Wagenborg Towage (towage services, towing of a pontoon from Poland to France on behalf of Trend Projekt);
Balta SA (logistic service and agency care for foreign vessels participating in the transport of crane elements to France).

The new crane from Trend Projekt will replace a 750-tonne blue gantry crane at Chantiers de l’Atlantique, which has served in dry dock since 1968 and is now obsolete.

The very high gantry crane (VHG), which is approximately ten metres higher than the current 1,400t crane, will make it possible to assemble all the superstructure components of the large cruise ships, including the chimneys, at the dock assembly stage, whereas these operations are currently carried out from the fitting out pool (Pool C) using leased cranes.

At the same time, the new crane will complement the 1400 tonne very large gantry (VLG; shown as red and white in the yard’s photos of recent years), the use of which will be maximised during the installation of the mega-blocks, allowing higher utilisation of the recently expanded pre-assembly area.

Following the dismantling of the old crane, which was originally (pre-pandemic) planned for between August and October 2021, the VHG, for which the total investment will be around €35 million, is expected to be commissioned (as announced in 2019) in the first quarter of 2022.

rel. PBS/ PortalMorski.pl