HHLA’s floating crane loads world’s biggest ship propeller

On 16 September, Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) loaded the biggest ship propeller in the world onto a vessel. The “HHLA IV” floating crane took the gigantic 110-tonne object to the port of Waltershof, where it was lifted onto the “Hyundai Supreme” container ship. 

It was the most powerful ship propeller to have ever been lifted by the hook of a HHLA floating crane. Although HHLA regularly loads the specialised products of Mecklenburger Metallguss GmbH (MMG) onto ships in Hamburg, the latest propeller, with a weight of 110 tonnes and a diameter of 10.50 metres, surpassed anything that had ever been seen at the port before.

MMG is a leading manufacturer of ship propellers. Around 100 MMG propellers are loaded onto ships at the Port of Hamburg alone every year before making their way to shipyards all over the world. Since they are usually transported by container ships, and container gantry cranes are generally unable to lift such large heavy loads, the “HHLA III” or “HHLA IV” floating cranes are nearly always involved in loading operations at the Port of Hamburg.

The “Hyundai Supreme”, a 5,000-TEU container ship, departed from the Port of Hamburg again on Sunday, 16 September, at 6:30 p.m. and headed for the Far East. The 110-tonne propeller on board is destined for the port of Busan in South Korea. From there, it will be transported on to the Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering shipyard, where the first of eleven new container ships are currently being built for the shipping company MSC. With a capacity of 23,000 TEU, the newbuilds will be the biggest container ships in the world.

www.hhla.de

 

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