Climbing Crane

Matt: Being my own boss as a designer creates a varied working week, admittedly most of the time I'm sat in front of this computer churning out work, but the work can be quite varied and interesting. This week however I had a spot at being a photographer.

DP World, one of my clients, needed some photos of one of their dock cranes in action. So I headed port side at Jebel Ali to see what I could capture.


Not the type of thing you'd hang on your wall, but it was a lot of fun and we got to climb to the top of the working crane too. These impressive yellow behemoths of the port loom far above you, perched on the dockside like a herd of wildebeest lined up drinking at the waterhole - with a travel arm that zips over head at frightening speeds hauling 40 foot containers around like they were empty cardboard boxes you can't help but be in awe of these machines and mans accomplishments.


Climbing these monsters was great, open metal stairs led us up 50 feet or so before we climbed into a very claustrophobic lift, barely big enough for 3 and ascended to conquer the beast. It was thrilling to be so high without a static structure beneath you, these huge cranes are on tracks that allow them to roll up and down the length of the container ships. And boy you could feel them move, they shake as the massive crane craddle trundles along the arm to collect another batch of containers.





Was great fun...