Offloading Giant Cranes from a Ship – Here’s How It’s Done [VIDEO]

May 8, 2015 by John Konrad

11071609_10152969780063661_8280219252316497879_n — Four Super Post-Panamax cranes arrive in Houston on May 5, 2015. Photo: Port of Houston Authority.

The arrival of four new Super Post-Panamax container cranes at the Port of Houston had a lot of people wondering exactly how they are going to offload the cranes from the deck of the heavy lift ship to dock.

Well, the answer is fairly simple: a combination of wheels, rails and pulling. Just think of a train on railroad tracks.

The below video shows exactly how they do it:

And as you can see from the photo below taken this week at the Port of Houston, crews are already laying down the tracks to unload the 1,500 ton cranes at the Barbours Cut Container Terminal. We’re told the offloading operation is expected to begin on Saturday and will take a few days.

About John Konrad

Captain John Konrad is the founder and CEO of gCaptain and author of the book Fire On The Horizon. He is licensed to captain the world's largest ships and has sailed from ports around the world. John has built some of the world's most advanced ships and managed billion-dollar offshore construction projects in some of the world's harshest marine environments. John is a distinguished alumnus of New York Maritime College.