The Eriksberg Crane ( sv, Eriksbergskranen) is a full gantry crane in the Eriksberg district of Gothenburg, part of the former Eriksberg shipyard. It is a

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

, and is considered to be one of the city's main

landmarks A landmark is a recognizable natural or artificial feature used for navigation, a feature that stands out from its near environment and is often visible from long distances. In modern use, the term can also be applied to smaller structures or f ...

and an important relic of its industrial and maritime heritage. The company Eriksbergs Mekaniska Verkstad was founded in the Eriksberg district of Gothenburg in 1876, and initially specialised in manufacturing iron and steel parts, but later switched its focus to shipbuilding and built up a sizeable shipyard on the north bank of the

Göta Älv Göta is a Swedish given name, which is the female equivalent of Göte. It may refer to: *Göta Ljungberg (1893–1955), Swedish singer *Göta Pettersson (1926–1993), Swedish gymnast Other uses *Göta, Sweden *Göta älv, a river in Sweden *G ...

, on the island of Hisingen. The main structure of the crane was fashioned in eight sections by

NOHAB NOHAB (Nydqvist & Holm AB) was a manufacturing company based in the city of Trollhättan, Sweden. History The company was founded by Antenor Nydqvist, Johan Magnus Lidström and Carl Olof Holm in 1847 as ''Trollhättans Mekaniska Verkstad'' as ...

Trollhättan Trollhättan () is the 23rd-largest city in Sweden, the seat of Trollhättan Municipality, Västra Götaland County. It is situated by Göta älv, near the lake Vänern, and has a population of approximately 50,000 in the city proper. It is loc ...

in 1968, and was transported by barge down the

to Gothenburg. The crane was assembled and erected at one of the dry docks in the Eriksberg shipyard in 1969. The lifting gear was manufactured by Pohlig-Heckel-Bleichert (PHB) in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

. However, in the event the new gantry crane only saw a decade of use. Eriksbergs Mekaniska Verkstad was bought out by the Swedish state in 1975, becoming part of the

nationalise Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

d Svenska Varv, and production at the Gothenburg shipyard was wound down in 1978–1979, with the yard's final vessel, the M/T ''Atland'', being delivered on 15 June 1979. From 1993 the crane has been used for bungee jumping, and at 84 metres in height, it is Sweden's highest bungee-jumping location.“Eriksbergs bockkran blir byggnadsminne”
Länsstyrelsen I Västra Götalands län. Press release 26 June 2012. It was recognised as a listed building in 2012.Beslutsdatum 2012-06-25.
Eriksbergs bockkran. Although no longer operational, the Eriksberg Crane is the only remaining full gantry crane in Sweden. There were once similar cranes at shipyards in

Uddevalla Uddevalla (old no, Oddevold) is a town and the seat of Uddevalla Municipality in Västra Götaland County, Sweden. In 2015, it had a population of 34 781. It is located at a bay of the south-eastern part of Skagerrak. The beaches of Uddevalla ar ...

and

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal pop ...

, but the former was scrapped in 1986 and the latter (the so-called

Kockums Crane The Kockums Crane ( sv, Kockumskranen) is a high gantry crane in the Hyundai Heavy Industries shipyard in Ulsan, South Korea. It was originally used at the Kockums shipyard in Malmö, Sweden. History It was built in 1973–74 and could li ...

) was sold to Hyundai Heavy Industries in 2002, for the nominal sum of $1 (

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

), and transported to

Ulsan Ulsan (), officially the Ulsan Metropolitan City is South Korea's seventh-largest metropolitan city and the eighth-largest city overall, with a population of over 1.1 million inhabitants. It is located in the south-east of the country, neighboring ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

.”Eriksbergs bockkran”
article by Olle Niklasson in

Göteborgs-Posten ''Göteborgs-Posten'' (lit. "The Gothenburg Post"), abbreviated GP, is a major Swedish language daily newspaper published in Gothenburg, Sweden. History and profile ''Göteborgs-Posten'' was first published in 1813, but ceased publication in 1 ...

, 14 March 2013, updated 22 January 2014.

References

{{coord, 57.6976, 11.9090, type:landmark_region:SE, display=title Buildings and structures in Gothenburg Shipyard cranes Individual cranes (machines) Buildings and structures completed in 1969

See also

References