Dear (s) Recently, I had detailed something on a Reach stacker. That was an equipment a la fork lift used for lifting and stacking containers. There are some more equipments which handle containers - one such is called a Portainer. A portainer, also known as a container crane is a large dockside crane in the form of a specialized type of gantry crane used to load and unload container ships. These are seen in modern ports and container terminals. Here is how it looks :
Container Cranes are
generally classified by their lifting capacity, and the size of the container
ships they can load and unload containers. A modern container crane capable of
lifting two 20 foot long containers at one time will generally have a rated
lifting capacity of 65 long tons from under the Spreader. Here is a photo of containers getting loaded
onto a ship.
Container cranes have a special lifting device
called a spreader bar for loading and discharging of containers. The spreader
bar has four or eight (twin-lift) twist locks which lock and unlock into the
corner castings of the containers and can be used in 20', 40', or 45' positions
depending on the size of the containers.Horizontal gantry rails and their supporting structure are cantilevered
out from between frame uprights spaced to suit the length of a standard freight
container, so that the gantry rails project over a quayside and over the width
of an adjacent ship allowing the hoist to lift containers from the quay and
move out along the gantry rails on its trolley to place the containers on the
ship.
In any busy port it
would be a common sight to see trucks and container lifters manoeuvring
underneath the base of the portainer and
collect the cargo boxes. But for a Man, it
is quite awesome and walking under the equipments handling bulky
containers could well be an exercise of trepidation. This is how the walk under could be ……………….
Scientific advances are
to be marvelled but personally a walk under such equipment would evoke rather
queer thinking.Such fear of course
would subside with experience and confidence or perhaps wouldjust fade away when one has to think of so
many other things not mundane.
To conclude, understand
that this term Portainer is a registered
trademark of Paceco Corp. who is generally believed to have delivered the first
Container Crane to a marine terminal in Alameda,
CA in the 1960s. Not sure whether this company has anything
connected to the namesake small town in Sicily, Italy
which has inhabitants of around 11000 only. Bigger the equipment, bigger could be the
magnitude of loss .
With regards - S Sampathkumar.
PS : Shared with my group on 10/12/2007; made as draft in Feb 2012 and posted on the blog now.
