I thought this excerpt from a message from Mr Mark Cairns, Chief Executive, Port of Tauranga Limited, New Zealand might be of interest: "Port of Tauranga's fifth ship-to-shore Liebherr gantry crane arrived from Ireland on 19 May 2009. The vessel Beluga Fraternity has been especially chartered to deliver the crane to Tauranga. The crane will then be assembled on-site at the Tauranga Container Terminal, behind the berth face, and will be skidded into position for final commissioning. The crane is scheduled to be in operation by July 2009. The new crane has been specifically designed to handle the larger 5,000-7,000 TEU container ships, with an out-reach of 48 metres. This makes it capable of handling container ships 18 containers wide (the largest container ships currently plying New Zealand waters are 13 containers wide). The crane will provide a lifting capacity of 60 tonnes under a telescopic twin-lift spreader and up to 80 tonnes under the hook beam. Mark Cairns, Port of Tauranga Chief Executive, says that the new crane is an integral part of the Port's strategic planning, in preparation for accommodating container vessels up to 7,000 TEUs. "In addition, we have completed the assessment of environmental effects for our harbour dredging project, to be able to widen and deepen our harbour channels and sitting basins to 14.5 metres draught at low water" Port of Tauranga, which is New Zealand's biggest export port has a very good website at:
http://www.port-tauranga.co.nz. Photos of the arrival of the Beluga Fraternity can be found on the Ship Photo Search.