Zhen Hua 28, being pushed sideways by tugboats towards the dock
in Tacoma where the cranes would be off-loaded. Photo from the internet.
Some of you readers may be bored to tears with this shipping stuff. Some of you will be riveted and want more.
While the Zhen Hua 28 was here in Tacoma for one week this past February, I took almost 300 photos of the ship and the cranes over a period of four days, so you can see where I fall on that bored vs. riveted continuum. I was fascinated by everything, all of it. I have included 37 of my photos here plus the one above that was snagged off the internet.
My blog post about that February day of wind-driven snow and icy cold fog when the ship arrived is here, if you’d like to review it.
But THIS post is about the amazingly sunshiny days after that one day, still in February, but completely different weather. The ship was anchored for a day or two, then it was taken by tugs to the dock where it sat for a day while preparations were made for off-loading the cranes, then the cranes were off-loaded onto the dock, then the ship was taken back out into Commencement Bay and anchored again for a few days, and eventually it left Puget Sound and headed back to China.
While the ship was here, I drove to four places around the shores of Commencement Bay to get photographs of the ship from various angles. As a result, I was sometimes a few miles away from the anchored ship (it’s a very large bay), so some of the close-up photos below are small cropped sections of my photos and they may be a bit blurry. But I wanted to include them to give you a chance to see parts of this working ship.
While creating this post, I looked up stuff online in order to fill in some of the details, and then I got absolutely completely waylaid by all manner of fascinating things about these cranes, about the ship, about other “heavy lift” ships and cargo.
So that’s my story about why this post took me so long to publish for you. In the end, I had to exclude about 92% of the stuff I wanted to include here! At the bottom of this post I share some links that will send some of you off into hours and hours of online research. 🙂
Ok, let’s get on with the story of the Zhen Hua 28!
As soon as the ship arrived (in that cold, nasty snow and fog), it anchored in Commencement Bay near the Tacoma shipyards. The very next day was sunny and calm and almost warm!
The red and white tug on the left above is a Crowley tug that had helped escort and then position the ship. The black and white tug next to the starboard side of the ship is from Portland, Oregon, and is one of two tugs that had escorted the ship from off-shore out in the Pacific Ocean, in through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and all the way down Puget Sound to Tacoma. The two Oregon tugs stayed here in Tacoma with the ship until the cranes had been off-loaded.
As soon as the ship was securely anchored, one of the “arms” on one of the cranes was raised. It stayed in that position for two days. I don’t know why. It certainly made the ship list to starboard and that seemed odd, but I’d bet the folks on board knew what they were doing.
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After one day at anchor, the ship was brought to the dock where the cranes would be off-loaded. In the photo below, the ship (with the RED hull) is close to the center of the photo. Look for the tallest cranes around, and you’ll find the ship.
Six gynormous lines held the stern of the ship to the dock. Six more lines held the bow to the dock, and many more lines were secured mid-ships.
As well, there was always one or the other of the tugs from Portland secured with lines to the side of the ship and that very gently at very low RPM held the ship against the dock.
The next day, the mechanical apparatus needed to off-load the cranes was installed on the land-based pier, on the dock, in precise locations that lined up with each of the cranes.
Two videos below show how cranes are unloaded.
The first is a YouTube video that shows a similar ship, the Zhen Hua 13, unloading cranes. The “28” unloaded these Tacoma cranes in a similar fashion and that’s the second video below. Basically, on the “28“, temporary sets of wheels were installed under the crane, then each crane was rolled off the ship using giant cables and guided along on a temporary, purpose built railway. Once on the dock, the temporary wheel sets were uninstalled, and the cranes were then rolled along on their permanently installed wheels to their resting position on the dock.
The YouTube video of our Zhen Hua 28 unloading our cranes is below. I don’t have a clue how they get those temporary wheels under the cranes in the first place (maybe they were installed in China?) but then they have to get the wheels out from under afterwards here in Tacoma. Each crane weighs … get this … each crane weighs 3.5 MILLION pounds! They sure aren’t something you just pry up with a pry bar.
Crane #4, the first crane to be off-loaded, is now off the ship and on the dock.
Crane #4, the first to be off-loaded, is on the dock (on the right in the photo above) … three more cranes to go.
Crane #3 was next (above) ….
In just one day, all four cranes were unloaded and secured on the dock. These are the largest container cranes on the West Coast of the USA, each standing 295-feet high with the boom lowered and an impressive 434-feet high when the boom is extended skyward.
The cranes are not only larger, but are also much more strongly built so they can lift more weight and do that lifting much faster than other cranes.
The empty ship was then taken away from the dock and was again anchored in Commencement Bay. The ship sure looks different without those cranes on board.
Yes, you may have noticed, the ship was listing quite a bit to starboard. I wonder if doing that made it easier to off-load the cranes at the dock, since the cranes were removed from the starboard side of the ship. They can set the list of the ship by distributing water ballast from side to side.
Local boaters out for a sail and a peek at the big ship.
I’m sure it took the crew a few days to get everything on the ship secure, the remaining supports un-welded from the ship that had been welded to the cranes, and the ship leveled again, before heading back out across the Pacific Ocean.
I wondered about the water ballast in the bilge of the ship. As the cranes were off-loaded, did the ship take on more water ballast so it would continue to sit at the same level in the water? At some point, the water ballast would need to be pumped out. How do they deal with invasive species in order to prevent them from being transported around the world?
At anchor in Commencement Bay with the Olympic Mountains in the distance. The day after this photo was taken, the ship was gone, heading home to China.
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More information, videos, and internet links below …
An excellent video about the purchasing process and inspections in China:
Information about the cranes and this project in Tacoma is here: https://www.nwseaportalliance.com.
Current information about the Zhen Hua 28 is here: https://www.fleetmon.com/vessels/zhen-hua-28_8700266_10722/?language=en.
Wikipedia article about the Zhen Hua company in China here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhenhua.
You can run a Google or Bing search for “zhen hua 28”, and get even more information, especially if you check the “images” search. The images show other heavy cargo that this ship can carry, including brand new 300-foot barges (obviously loaded sideways onto the ship so the barges hang off each side for a LONG way) along with some brand new 90-foot tug boats perched on top of the barges.
Finding out how the world works is so fascinating to me. Hope you enjoyed this too. 🙂
Dang! Living in Montana is boring! Not really, but this stuff you write about is really interesting and stuff I know nothing about. This was great, Ann. Thank you!
You are welcome Tim! Glad you enjoyed it. There is so much to learn about. Someday I will get to Montana and be fascinated with everything I see, including things that might seem familiar and rather ordinary to you. It’s really cool to see new stuff, isn’t it?