Wednesday, 7 September 2011

The floating crane Grua Flotante No. 1 built at Zaandam, Netherlands for Uruguay in 1913

Ron van Maanen

The Dutch newspaper Het nieuws van den dag: kleine courant,daily edition dated 12 December 1913 published a item dealing with the Conrad yard of Haarlem.(1) In fact built this yard at that moment the ships on a location at Zaandam. The day before [Wednesday] was at Zaandam in the presence of the board of Haarlem, representatives of the municipality of Zaandam and a lot of interested people of Zaandam and elsewhere the floating crane Grua Flotante No. 1 launched built for the government of Uruguay (Department of Public Affairs) . Her dimensions were 238 x 37’3”x 20’. The crane with a lifting capacity of 100.000 kilo was placed on a hull of a steel built double screw steamship and operated electrically through a dynamo directly connected with an independent steam engine. She was the first ship built at the yard at Zaandam where her keel was laid down 24 April 1913.


Note
1. The Dutch newspaper Het volk: dagblad voor de arbeidspartij daily edition dated 11 December 1913 supplied similar details.