This Manitowoc 4600 Series-3 is currently hefting a Demag pile driver around the Port of Long Beach in California, USA to drive a forest of 1,100 concrete piles into the seabed.
The 600mm octagonal cross section units will support an 800m-long concrete decked wharfside for the first phase of a new 280ha container terminal, on land once used by the US Navy at the port’s Pier T. Supplementing the shore crane’s Demag D80 is a bigger D100 driver and frame, which is carried on a Clyde Model 32 lattice boom mobile, working offshore from a barge. It drives straight piles; shoreside they are raked for seismic resistance. Two more barges with Clydes are carrying out general dredging work with clamshells, although a cutter suction dredger further out does the bulk of seabed deepening. The port will offer water more than 14m deep for the biggest ships. The cranes are owned by Manson Construction & Engineering of Seattle which has teamed up with local firm Connolly-Pacific for the $70M contract. Another 800m section will follow.
