Weeks 533 is a capacity

Clyde Iron Works The Clyde Iron Works was a Scottish-based ironworking plant which operated from 1786 to 1978. Clyde Iron occupied a large site near the Carmyle and Tollcross areas of Glasgow. The plant was built by William Cadell (1737–1819) and Thomas Edi ...

model 52 barge-mounted crane which is the largest revolving

floating crane Floating may refer to: * a type of dental work performed on horse teeth * use of an isolation tank * the guitar-playing technique where chords are sustained rather than scratched * ''Floating'' (play), by Hugh Hughes * Floating (psychological phe ...

on the East Coast of the United States. It was originally ordered for bridge construction and has since been used in several notable heavy lifts.

History

The ''Marine Boss'' floating barge-crane was built for Murphy Pacific Marine. The barge was assembled by Zidell Explorations from scrapped ship steel in Oregon in 1966 and fitted in San Francisco with a heavy 500-ton revolving crane made by Clyde Iron Works to perform the heavy girder and deck-section lifts for construction of the 1967 San Mateo-Hayward Bridge. At the time it was the largest barge crane in the western United States. In the 1970s, ''Marine Boss'' was sold to J. Ray McDermott & Co., who had introduced the first 500-ton floating cranes for offshore platform construction in 1965 and were operating a similar fleet of barge-cranes under the McDermott Derrick Barge (DB) class. McDermott would later sell it for scrap in 1988 to

Weeks Marine Weeks Marine is a marine construction and dredging contractor based in Cranford, NJ. It was founded by Francis Weeks and his son Richard B. Weeks in 1919 as the Weeks Stevedoring Company. Company Weeks has three key divisions—Construction, D ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, who renamed it the ''Weeks 533'' and refurbished it from 1997-2000. ''Weeks 533'' is considered the flagship of the Weeks fleet. One of the tugboats returning ''Weeks 533'' from Albany to New Jersey collided with the moored 750t crane barge ''N181'' (aka ''Hank Hummel'') near the Tappan Zee Bridge at night in heavy fog on 12 March 2016. That tug, the ''Specialist'', subsequently sank, killing all three sailors. Although the mate, who was at the helm of ''Specialist'', initially jumped clear from the stricken tug onto ''N181'', he returned to help free a trapped crewmate and all hands aboard subsequently drowned.

Capacity

The Clyde Iron Works Model 52-DE crane can lift using the main hoist on a boom at any point in the crane's revolution; capacity rises to when using the main hoist oriented astern. Motive power for the main hoist is provided by a Caterpillar 3412 V-12 diesel engine, and electric power for the barge is provided by a Caterpillar 3406 I-6 diesel generator set.

Bridges built

Rio Vista Bridge The Rio Vista Bridge (officially the Helen Madere Memorial Bridge) is a continuous truss span with a vertical-lift bridge in the middle which carries California State Route 12 across the Sacramento River at Rio Vista, California. The present bridg ...

replacement span (1967) *

San Mateo–Hayward Bridge The San Mateo–Hayward Bridge (commonly called the San Mateo Bridge) is a bridge crossing the American state of California's San Francisco Bay, linking the San Francisco Peninsula with the East Bay. The bridge's western end is in Foster City, ...

(1967) *

San Diego–Coronado Bridge The San Diego–Coronado Bridge, locally referred to as the Coronado Bridge, is a prestressed concrete/steel girder bridge, crossing over San Diego Bay in the United States, linking San Diego with Coronado, California. The bridge is signed as ...

(1969) * Queensway Twin Bridges (1971), near RMS Queen Mary at the

Port of Long Beach The Port of Long Beach, also known as the Harbor Department of the City of Long Beach, is a container port in the United States, which adjoins Port of Los Angeles. Acting as a major gateway for US–Asian trade, the port occupies of land with ...

Fremont Bridge (Portland) The Fremont Bridge is a steel tied-arch bridge over the Willamette River located in Portland, Oregon, United States. It carries Interstate 405 and US 30 traffic between downtown and North Portland where it intersects with Interstate 5. It has t ...

(1973) File:San Diego-Coronado Bridge Construction (15556-12).jpg, alt=Constructing the San Diego-Coronado Bridge, Murphy Pacific's ''Marine Boss'' at work on the

(c.1968) File:Space Shuttle Enterprise lifted onto deck of the U.S.S. Intrepid (7402541782).jpg, alt=Weeks 533, a crane barge, lifts the Space Shuttle Enterprise, ''Weeks 533'' lifts the ''Enterprise'' onto (2012) File:USAirways-1549 lifting out of Hudson.jpg, alt=US Airways Flight 1549 is lifted from the Hudson River,

US Airways Flight 1549 US Airways Flight 1549 was a regularly scheduled US Airways flight from New York City (LaGuardia Airport), to Charlotte and Seattle, in the United States. On January 15, 2009, the Airbus A320 serving the flight struck a flock of birds short ...

Notable heavy lifts

UGM-73 Poseidon The UGM-73 Poseidon missile was the second US Navy nuclear-armed submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) system, powered by a two-stage solid-fuel rocket. It succeeded the UGM-27 Polaris beginning in 1972, bringing major advances in warhea ...

missile test facility structural members at

Hunters Point Naval Shipyard The Hunters Point Naval Shipyard was a United States Navy shipyard in San Francisco, California, located on of waterfront at Hunters Point in the southeast corner of the city. Originally, Hunters Point was a commercial shipyard established ...

(1967) *

SEALAB III SEALAB I, II, and III were experimental underwater habitats developed by the United States Navy in the 1960s to prove the viability of saturation diving and humans living in isolation for extended periods of time. The knowledge gained from the ...

, off the coast of San Clemente Island (1969) * Pier protection system for the Tappan Zee Bridge (2000) * The capsized ''MV Stellamare'' at the

Port of Albany–Rensselaer The Port of Albany–Rensselaer, widely known as the Port of Albany, is a port of entry in the United States with facilities on both sides of the Hudson River in Albany and Rensselaer, New York. Private and public port facilities have existed ...

(2003, as a team with Donjon's ''Chesapeake 1000'') * The downed hull of

(2009) from the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

Concorde The Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde () is a retired Franco-British supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation (later Aérospatiale) and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France an ...

G-BOAD on Pier 86 (2008) and ''Enterprise'' (2012) onto the

Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum The ''Intrepid'' Sea, Air & Space Museum is an American military and maritime history museum in New York City with a collection of museum ships. It is located at Pier 86 at 46th Street, along the Hudson River, in the Hell's Kitchen neighborh ...

* The old main span of the East 78th Street pedestrian bridge and the replacement span (2011–2012) over FDR Drive * The replacement New York–New Jersey Rail

Greenville Yard Greenville Yard is a freight rail yard in the Port of New York and New Jersey. It is located on Upper New York Bay in Jersey City, New Jersey adjacent and north of Port Jersey. Originally developed in 1904 by the Pennsylvania Railroad, it was la ...

transfer bridge (2013) in the wake of

Hurricane Sandy Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as ''Superstorm Sandy'') was an extremely destructive and strong Atlantic hurricane, as well as the largest Atlantic hurricane on record as measured by diameter, with tropical-storm-force winds spann ...

* Steel jacket foundations for

Block Island Wind Farm Block Island Wind Farm was the first commercial offshore wind farm in the United States, located from Block Island, Rhode Island in the Atlantic Ocean. The five-turbine, 30 MW project was developed by Deepwater Wind, now Ørsted US Offshor ...

(2015) * Cleanup of the WTC in New York City from the 9/11 attacks, moored below 55 Water Street.

References

External links

*
Pictures of ''Weeks 533'' in dry dock
* * * * * * {{cite web , url=https://www.wired.com/culture/art/news/2009/05/gallery_flight_1549?currentPage=3 , author=Shechmeister, Matthew , title=The Unlikely Events of a Water Landing: New Photos From Flight 1549 , date=13 May 2009 , publisher=Wired , access-date=9 July 2015 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130102023332/http://www.wired.com/culture/art/news/2009/05/gallery_flight_1549?currentPage=3 , archive-date=2 January 2013 , url-status=dead Crane vessels Individual cranes (machines) Port of New York and New Jersey