Chantiers de l’Atlantique has just decided to equip itself with a new gantry with a total lifting capacity of 1050 tons.

This will replace the 750-tonne blue gantry crane that has served the deep dock of the site’s construction since 1968 and is getting obsolete.

With a height about ten meters superior to the current 1400t gantry crane, the  Very High Gantry (VHG) will allow the installation of all the superstructure elements of large  cruise ships, such as funnels, at the deep dock stage,  while these operations are currently being carried out from the outfitting basin (Basin C) using leased cranes.

It will be complementary to the 1400 ton- Very Large Gantry (in white and red in the photo),  whose use will be maximized for the installation upstream of mega-blocks,  making the most of the recent extension of the pre-assembly area.

Representing a total investment of around 35 million euros, the VHG is expected to be operational in the first quarter of 2022, after the dismantling of the old gantry crane which will take place between August and October 2021.