The pontoon-crane "Ursus" moored to a wharf in the gulf of Trieste.Tomorrow I'll tell you some history and you can see exactly how large this aquatic monster actually is.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Ursus
The pontoon-crane "Ursus" moored to a wharf in the gulf of Trieste.Tomorrow I'll tell you some history and you can see exactly how large this aquatic monster actually is.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Wonderful refrection!
It seems huge, can't wait the story. Are you sure it is a bridge and not a crane?
I had to look up pontoon bridge first. Never encountered anything like it! Fascinating. Looking forward to your story tomorrow.
it also looks like the sail of a boat or may be a miniature Dubai hotel. The reflection is great and makes the scene.
Vogon Poet: it's a crane of course! Thanks for pointing that out. My wife (the official translator) was very tired last night!!
It looks like the type of crane used for unloading container ships which often means ships containing manufactured goods from China.
It is really a crane. They started working on it in 1913 and finished the following year. It weights 2200 tons and it is 75m high. The platform is 54 by 24 meters wide and 2.5m deep. It could lift a weight of 300 tons up to the height of 70m. Later it was modified and a rotational vertical axes has been added, reducing the maximum load to 150 tons. I has 2 engines, allowing the platform to autonomously move. It was designed in order to move engines inside the body of transatlantic ships and to load austrian navy ship with cannons. It was a jewel of the technology of its time, it has been used for lifting trains and to rescue sinked ships from the bottom of the sea. Now it has been restored, the engine doesn't move it anymore and it became a floating archaeological industrial piece of museum and it hosts a contemporary art museum in it too.
I visited it today, I recommend it for those who like the feeling of jumping back in past, quite far from our plastic and electronic era. When life was hard and things were made up from different concepts: this iron giant had to work forever, in the mind of the engineers of the previous century. Nowa in sea of Trieste it is as like as silent guardian of a world that does not exist anymore.
Post a Comment