Savannah receives four enormous Super Post-Panamax container cranes

The Port of Savannah yesterday received four Super Post-Panamax ship-to-shore cranes, upgrading its crane fleet to 34 machines at Garden City Terminal after four older cranes are retired and recycled.

Ship-to-shore cranes are the workhorses of container port operations, unloading and loading cargo from the container ships that call on the port. The Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) says it needs the new equipment to keep up with its growing share of the U.S. container trade, which is shifting as a result of trends in U.S. demographics and manufacturing, as well as changes in global sourcing.

At Savannah, two of the new cranes will be 295 feet tall and two will be 306 feet tall at the highest point when fully assembled. The reach of the cranes will be 22 and 24 containers wide, respectively. They were all designed by Konecranes of Finland, and arrived on the vessel BigLift Barentsz.

“Along with the completion of our project to improve Berth 1, these cranes will help deliver faster turn times to our ocean carrier customers, including the largest vessels calling on the U.S. East Coast,” Griff Lynch, GPA president and CEO, said in a release. “No other terminal in the nation can bring more cranes to bear, or match the efficiency, productivity and global connectivity of the Port of Savannah.”

GPA received a previous batch of four cranes in February to work the recently renovated Berth 1, which is now capable of serving vessels with a capacity of 16,000+ twenty-foot equivalent container units. The cranes and improved dock increase Garden City Terminal berth productivity by 25 percent or 1.5 million TEUs of annual capacity. 

The facility had also received three Neo-Panamax ship-to-shore cranes in 2020. The new equipment is part of GPA’s $1.9 billion infrastructure improvement plan to keep pace with future supply chain needs.