Windhoist, the subsidiary of McNallys Crane Hire specialising in wind turbine erection, have recently begun erecting the first of 29 MM82 turbines on behalf of Repower Australia as part of the Cape Bridgewater windfarm development for Pacific Hydro Ltd.

The turbines are being erected on a coastal site near Melbourne and the undulating, sandy terrain presents many challenges for our cranes and erection teams. Because of the general site topography, lattice boom cranes were quickly ruled out in favour of 500te class telescopic boom with short luffing jib. Although Lattice booms are readily available in Australia, this is not the case with telescopic cranes (there are only two 500te liebherr cranes here). Instead, we shipped one of our Liebherr LTM 1500 (500te) cranes from Ireland and the erection works are now underway.

Our crane/erection team has been supplemented with locally sourced personnel including our first female crane operator - Brodeen Graham, photographed whilst operating the 500te crane. The 3rd & 4th photo shows the first rotor being installed by the erection team under the direction of our project manager Shane McGorry and this marks the beginning of a new future for us.

Who would have thought moving classrooms would be so stressful!!!
McNallys were invited to solve a tricky problem for Alliance Building Systems wherein 4 Modular pre-fabricated buildings, measuring 20m x 10m and weighing 23te, had to be moved some 250m across the grounds of Mary I college in Limerick.

We faced a number of problems in terms of access to site, the presence of mature trees and limited set up locations. The process began with one of our Liebherr LTM 1500 (500te) cranes, c/w 16.1m boom, 35m luffing jib and 165te ballast, lifting the buildings at 52m radius and transferring to our 100te Crawler LTR1100. This crane carried the modular buildings across a grassed area, in turn, to a 200te crane (Liebherr LTM 1200) which lifted the load a location allowing transfer to a Grove GMK 6300 (300te) crane!!

We were very fortunate that, in a period of very high winds, the day allocated for lifting was dead calm and all lifts were completed inside 10 hours.

This project involved the renewal of a rail over-bridge on the Belfast/Dublin railway during a 30 hour shutdown during which the old steel bridge weighing 50te was removed and the new pre-cast concrete structure weighing 220te was installed.

We mobilised our TC 2800-1 c/w 54m main boom, 30m back-mast, 160te standard ballast & 200te super-lift ballast on a piled foundation base adjacent to the main laydown area. The structure had been cast on site and fitted with heavy steel beams to assist with the 8 point sling detail.

The operation proceeded smoothly and was completed well within the allocated time frame.

McNallys were awarded the contract to install 21 heavy modules to the HRSG at phase (ii) of the above named project including mechanical works. The complex crane operation entailed the mobilisation of our TC 2800-1 (heavy lattice boom), 2 No. 300te cranes, 1 No. 200te crane and an 80te crane. We also supplied a 10 man team to carry out the necessary slinging/banking and mechanical erection works.

The heaviest lifts involved our TC 2800-1 placing 180te modules to a radius of 30m using a 72m main boom, 30m back-mast, 160te standard ballast and 250te super-lift ballast.

The process was complicated by the confined nature of the site (see photo) and the adverse weather conditions resulting in many winded off days.