Shipbuilder utilizes Link-Belt Series II

The Link-Belt RTC-80130 Series II RT has given Chesapeake Shipbuilders a much broader range of use, the company said.

Chesapeake Shipbuilding Corporation of Salisbury, MD has been a builder and designer of commercial ships for over 30 years. The company purchased a 130-ton Link-Belt RTC-80130 Series II rough terrain crane to quickly pick and carry launch ways for a vessel launch. The ways are 22,000 pounds and 50 feet long and 9 feet tall. Once a ship is launched, the ways fall into the Wicomico River with the ship and the RTC-80130 Series II can then retrieve it.

After launching a boat, the RTC-80130 retrieves the upper slider way sections that go in the water with the vessel. Buoys are attached to the slider ways for easy relocation for lifting. The heaviest sliders weigh about 15,000 pounds and are lifted at an 85-foot radius. The RTC-80130 uses 115 feet of boom at a 45-degree boom angle.

“Since we are constrained by our covered building size, the other advantage of having this crane is to allow us to build up our ships taller and denser once launched in the water basin,” said John Romanchak, senior marine engineer, Chesapeake Shipbuilding. “In the past, we had to stage many piles of steel structure, and steel bulkheads by the boat. The crane would have to go to each one of those piles. It could only locally place those pieces of steel.”