This Thursday, March 12, at approximately 2:00pm PDT, the ZPMC vessel Zhen Hua 22 carried the Left Coast Lifter under the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge. The Left Coast Lifter is a barge mounted shear leg crane with a maximum lift capacity of 1700 metric tons and will be used by American Bridge/Fluor in the completion of the new San Francisco – Oakland Self Anchored Span.
The Zhen Hua 22 carrying the Left Coast Lifter
The Zhen Hua 22 passes under the Golden Gate Bridge carrying the Left Coast Lifter
McKay, Liftech, and Siver Engineering were retained by American Bridge/Fluor JV to assist with the design, manufacturing review, and testing of the Left Coast Lifter.
One of McKay’s founding engineers, Don Harlander, was instrumental in the development of the very first container crane. Built for Matson in 1959, the crane helped revolutionize cargo handling and served as the prototype and proof-of-concept for the thousands of cranes which have been built since.
The historical importance of the crane was recognized by ASME and on May 5, 1983, the crane was dedicated as an International Historic Engineering Landmark. An informative brochure from the dedication ceremony can be found here.
Some additional information about container cranes can be found on this Wikipedia article. McKay is also always happy to answer any questions regarding cranes; so please feel free to leave a comment or contact us.
Today marks the launch of our new and improved website. It is still a little rough around the edges, but we expect it to evolve into a useful tool for those interested in heavy equipment design, and dockside container cranes in particular.
We are definately interested in feedback from the community and most areas of our site have a spot for comments. So let us know what you think.
We plan to provide regular updates and links to relevant news stories as well as other articles and tools of interest to the container handling industry.
For those of you more interested in McKay in particular, we will also eventually flush out the site with a list of key projects, a sample of our work, case studies, and customer testimonials. In the mean time, please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have.
Thank you for your interest in McKay.
Nicholas G. Grebe, P.E. Vice President, Mechanical Engineer McKay International Engineers
