JR 20

With the imminent (I think) arrival in the sixth boro of a large shearleg crane for the Tappan Zee project, here’s a chance to look at one of these floating cranes.  I believe the crane known as Left Coast Lifter has a lift capacity of just under 2000 tons.   This one–Pelicano 1 (ex-Kaisei) has capacity over 2000 tons.  I’ve not found much info about Kaisei.

The largest floating crane I’ve seen prior to this is Donjon’s Chesapeake 1000, which lifted segments of WTC antenna from barge to land back a half year ago.

Here’s Pelicano 1‘s tender.

Since a floating shearleg crane doesn’t rotate on a frame, it uses thrusters like these to position a lift.

The first time I had an opportunity to look at a Thrustmaster was here.

For an image of a US battleship converted to a floating crane about a century ago, click here.

More as soon as I can.