London Thamesport has installed a new ship-to-shore quay crane with a reach of over 62 metres to accommodate the latest generation of post-panamax container ships.
The crane has an outreach of 62.5m, equivalent to four rows further across than any of their regular customers currently require.
The port’s largest regular callers are 339m vessels, but it has plans to extend the 650m quay by a further 100m to accommodate two ships at once. Thamesport can already accommodate the world’s longest merchant marine vessel, the Emma Maersk which can carry more than 11,000 TEU.
The crane was ordered through materials handling company Briggs Equipment, which provides and maintains the port’s quay cranes, gantry cranes, internal movement vehicles, and reach trucks. It was delivered via barge by Zhenhua Port Machinery Company of Shainghai.
Thamesport now has eight quay cranes along with twenty nine gantry cranes. It currently has an annual capacity of 875,000 TEU and planned developments would see this figure rise to 1.2 million.
