Port Everglades celebrates new ZPMC cranes going into service

Port Everglades noted that the cranes are 175ft high and will increase the size of the vessels it can serve.

“The Super Post-Panamax cranes can reach farther and handle a heavier load, particularly moving containers stacked eight high from a ship’s deck and can reach 22 containers across the ship’s deck, compared to the port’s seven Post-Panamax cranes that are 151-feet (46 meters) high and limited to containers stacked six high and reaching across 16 containers. Port Everglades now has a total of 13 container gantry cranes (six are Super Post-Panamax and seven are Post Panamax) and one mobile harbour crane,” the port said.

The three new cranes were manufactured by ZPMC cost US$15.1 million each. Further background on their delivery and details of the design was reported in this earlier article.

The port has given the total structural height of the cranes (175ft), which is 53.3m. Highlighting the difficulty for low-profile cranes as the height of container stacks on deck increases, STS cranes are now being ordered today with a lift height of up to 56m, which would clear the entire structure of the these low-profile cranes. With their design Liftech and Transhoist were able to achieve a lift height under the spreader for Everglades of 40.53m.

“With the commissioning of the new cranes, our historic $471 million project for the Southport Turning Notch Extension is nearly complete,” said Glenn Wiltshire, Acting Director of Port Everglades. “However, we’re not here to just celebrate cranes,” he said. “We applaud the investment that our Board of County Commissioners made throughout the years to build up the port’s infrastructure, which benefits the men and women who work these docks and the regional economy.”