February 23 - Three Liebherr cranes that are currently dominating the skyline at Rushbrook, Ireland, are ship-to-shore container handling cranes which are being loaded onto OHT's semi-submersible heavy lift vessel, Albatross.
Once onboard, the vessel will move to berth at the deepwater quay at Ringaskiddy where final bracing and ballasting for the two week voyage to Puerto Rico will take place.
Having been manufactured in Killarney the cranes have been assembled at Doyle Shipping Group's Cork dockyard facility over the past few months by a team of experienced assembly and installation personnel under the supervision of Liebherr engineers. The transfer of the cranes to the Albatross is being carried out by specialist engineering company, Mammoet.
Liebherr typically ships its cranes from Fenit, Ireland in large preassembled components for assembly onsite.
In this instance however, the cranes have been fully assembled prior to shipping. This is the first time fully erect container cranes have been shipped from Ireland, however Liebherr has previously undertaken this task overseas.
Each of the cranes weighs 1,000 tonnes, has an outreach of almost 40 m, a span of 30.48 m and a back reach of 15 m.
The ship with the three cranes aboard, weather conditions permitting, is due to move from Rushbrooke to Ringaskiddy on Sunday with final departure scheduled for Monday or Tuesday, next week.
