How the heck in this day and age does BS like this still happen, especially with all the virtual reality stuff that's around. Can't crane lifts be done in a room to insure it can be done safely on site? https://youtu.be/8_nTLIuk6Hk
I don't think they thought that all out very well. Wind might have played a part but I think it was the barges and the way they set the cranes up. Mobile cranes are made to be dead flat all the time, as the load shifted you can see both barges heel over and that was all she wrote. Might have been trying to slow it down, not sure, but you can see the boom on the far crane fold up... made my stomach churn but I had to watch it a couple more times. Any idea if the operators made it out?
I don't think wind could have played any part. I have watched this video a few times and there is a flag or sum such blowing towards the cranes. Also what sticks out most is the fact they lift a load off one side of the barge and swing it over the other. Before the lift the barge is sitting level, kinda like removing a counterweight. I guess the operators got out as there were no deaths only 20 people injured.
Looks to me like the cranes were counterweight heavy. Wonder if they would have boomed down a little if that would have kept them rubber side down. Lifting off a barge would scare me. I like solid ground.
The whole thing went to **** as soon as the suspended load touched the boom of the crane that was furthest away from the camera when they first started swinging. The lift should have stopped right then and the cranes swung back to the point where they started. Swinging a load like that in between 2 cranes isn't easy because one crane actually needs to initially swing in the opposite direction to the way the load is moving. Extremely disconcerting if you're sitting in the saddle at the time. Also it's extremly difficult to keep the same load on the 2 cranes all the time because of the different directions in which the 2 booms are heading during the lift.
Looks to me like it went south before the load hit the boom. I think everyone was along for the ride at that point. I would be interested to see the recovery process. Looks like most of the counterweight fell into the river.
The fall seemed to occur in slow motion in the beginning. My best guess is that the barge was ballasted with water and ballast water was shifting contrary to what should have been. Then the farther crane got the boom up too high and slid on the barge and lost footing and fell. After that the closer crane went also. I wonder what was the cost of these two cranes.
If you watch closely the far barge lists too far over and it looks to me like the operator was desperately trying to slow the swing but the boom couldn't take the side load and just folded up. I'm with Nige they should have stopped the instant the load hit the boom, or maybe the boom cylinders it looks like, but maybe they couldn't. Yeah, looked like the near side crane was okay until the load physically hit it as it was falling, the rigging looked like it all parted as the boom folded on the far one. I know you don't expect disaster but I would have put some really hefty rigging on those cranes to tie them down to the barges, they look like skittles there.
Guys, just a friendly advice: try to watch this movie in highest resolution 1080p. You can see A LOT MORE detail! You can also press SPACE BAR many times to make slo-mo. I could see that there were two barges. At some point after both bargest list, and the load pushes sideways, the farther crane's boom broke. Then the farther crane fell. Then the load fell on the nearer crane and broke one outrigger, and pushed another outrigger off the boat, so the nearer crane also fell into the water.
Sad part is the project engineer probably did do the virtual reality / computer model . Looked good on the screen . They needed some old school guy with hands on reality experience . I'm curios about what they were trying to set ??? Looked like it had legs / piers . Was it part of the canal or housing project ? See a lot of this now ...... Instead of using small equipment & labor to build something piece at a time ........ They say" lets build a whole section & bring in some huge iron to set it ". Looks & sounds good on the drawing board but can go bad in a big way on the job site . I give them a thumbs down . They had more money available on that project then experienced people . Who knows ? The crane operators may have just stood down & followed orders :beatsme
When working on the water, the normal load chart does not apply. You need a list chart from the crane manufacturer. And a lot of cranes have turned over backwards. Hope everyone is okay.
I do not believe that lift was planned at all by anyone practiced in engineering or in water/barge work. Both cranes were off center on the barge. The load was on the other side of the same barge so when they picked it and started to swing they were listing already. They never had a chance. We were securing cranes to the center of work barges way back in the 70s before we picked with them. One has to remember that when working on a barge you are never swinging level. You are always swinging uphill, either from load heavy, or from being counterweight heavy. It is a rare time when you may get part of a swing balanced when load equals counterweight. I'm happy to hear that no one got killed. God must have been watching that mess.
Said ramp, so maybe part of a drawbridge setup? Dunno why they didn't have room to make the lift from on shore. Saw something about 20 houses damaged?
I was watching the far crane and I am guessing he was all over the swing brake trying to stop the load. I think the load pushed through the swing brake. I agree with lantraxco. I think that the operator was trying to stop the swing. He probably broke the seat back standing on the swing brake. I'm sure he had a good grip on the bottom cushion though. I agree with everyones comments, they set themselves up to fail.
Good observation ichudov ! Sure looked like what happened . Don't know what type of set up they had on the barge bulkheads ? The job looked like the equivalent of a guy standing up in a canoe trying to real in the big fish . The boat rocked when the weight shifted and they all fell in the water . Bad deal . They would have been better off pulling the plug on the barge & setting it on the bottom of the canal if possible . Or go with a spud barge . http://www.mcdonoughmarine.com/crane-barges-and-power-spud-barges.html
I don't believe the barges would have been ballested with water. They are way to small for that in my opinion. If they were they would have been in multiple compartments with some sort of pumping system to keep the barge level. The only crane I have ever seen that in was Herman the German that was brought here as WW2 booty. It was and may still be in the Long Beach Navel base. That one displaces thousands of gallons a minute as it swings and hoists to keep the barge level. Everything happens in slow motion with that baby. And 1937 technology at that. I would guess that the new huge barge cranes have a similar system. But then they are all mounted cranes.
Dutra has several crane and excavator dredge barges with dynamic ballasting, and yes, the barge and the upper are designed and built as a unit, purpose built.
Herman The German That's pretty interesting old-iron-habit , thanks for sharing it . Sounds like it's still working in Panama . http://portoflongbeach.blogspot.com/2011/04/herman-german.html They may have to send it back to recover the Dutch crane disaster.
It could do the job. It seems silly that a machine that runs a few hours a year is deemed to dirty to continue to operate. Probably speewed more polution into the air moving it to Panama then it would have caused in the next 20 years.
It's sure impressive old-iron-habit ! I imagine that was a special event to be a part of when they set the Spruce Goose on the barge . I had never heard the name " Herman The German " but after looking at the pictures on the link something looked familiar about it . I had seen a picture of it setting a German U-Boat in a book . The article just talks about the sub . Until this thread I just thought it was a fixed mount crane on a dock . If you look close can see bilge/ ballast water spilling out a port in the lower right corner of the photo .
Thats a great picture TD25c. Lifting the sub really puts its size in perspective. I watched it reach over a aircraft carrier in Long Beach once making a pick on the far side. The boom arraignment is really unique. All rivet construction. Moving the Spruce Goose was a big moment for me at the time. I have always been a fan of that big bird that could barely fly. It was a well thought out move. Herman set the Goose on the barge placing it on large trucks that were set on rail road rail. When we got it over to the dome we sat around for a couple hours waiting for the tide to reach the right height. When the water level matched we winched the barge up tight connecting the barge tracks to ones laid on shore and in 15 minutes the Goose was winched off the barge and right into the hole in the side of the dome. A marine contractor I knew from the S.F Bay area a number of years later moved it up north to where it now resides. I did not get in on that move but he had some stories to tell about a barge that sprung a bad leak on the way. They almost lost it on California's north coast.
By the way guys, a question: how do you take care of steel wire rope, in a marine/salt spray environment? I thought that wire rope would rust almost instantly when sprayed with saltwater, and you cannot get the salt out of the inner part? Must be a big PITA?
You pay for better cable, Monel is good....
We never had any issues with wire rope failing any sooner than on land. We did our line inspections on a 30 day basis. I think the hard steel in the wire rope would take a while to rust to any degree to cause failure. But to qualify that statement these cranes ran every day and lines reached wear limits long before rust would have become an issue. The pennant lins were heavily greased every month when the wire inspections were done. We used 4 ea. 1-1/4" anchor lines on winches spread out sometimes many hundred feet in all 4 directions. We never replaced the anchor lines in the time I was offshore and we never broke one. They looked rusty and barnacled up but we pulled ourselves all over with them. They had a marker buoy on each anchor so we could have recovered the anchor if the line broke.
Cool Story old -iron-habit . Events like that you never forget & proud to be a part of :thumbsup I was also impressed after I realized " Herman The German " was a floating barge rig in the picture lifting the 300 + ton U boat !
Id definitely say that first crane boomed up way to far and she started to set back, once she started to rear up the swing brake couldn't hold it and she started to rotate, You can hear someone yell just before it all starts to go wrong. thats when you can see the far crane start to move. ALSO PAY CLOSE ATTENTION to the tug pushing on the far barge. it starts to rock, Makes me wonder if they got hit by some wake or something odd.
Looks wrong from the start.Narrow barges with big cranes on them.Its hard to believe there was even an attempt at stability calculation.looks like the tires were still touching the deck .Aluminum pads on a steel deck.Crane right on the end of the barge,with no though of keeping the barge trim.Our rigs always had a load chart done by an engineer specificly for the barge.There was no taking that crane with its marine chart to adifferent barge with out recalculation.Besides stability,Internal structure had to be assessed to assure structural capability of the particular barge.Metal to metal contact was never considered,matts or timbers were always used.As to tying the crane down,We usually tied truck cranes down,but left crawlers free to move in a specified area on matts.Crawler movement was limited by a chain, usually some 2" anchor chain to a pad eye welded on the deck.
I think the wind caught it... Looking at the flags that is half hidden behind a house roof, along with how quickly the dust blew away, there was a fair wind blowing.. The bridge part got released from it's dock, the wind caught it and it moved towards the small crane and starting tipping the barge over, giving the appearance the small crane was booming up, when it was the barge listing..
Any follow up as to how the recovery is going???