The historic town of Lindau on Lake Constance is famous for its lighthouse and for the lion standing right next to it at the entrance to the dockside. It is definitely worth a visit to this beautiful old town with its picturesque scenery located on a peninsula.

The docks also offer a unique highlight for people interested in technology - the Derrick harbour crane.

This is still in use today to lift boats out of or into Lake Constance.

Ancient greeks are known to have worked with a hoist, very similar to a Derrick crane.

In most cases, the basic structure of the derrick crane consists of a steel strut construction, which looks like a supported A (shown in orange) and which allows a high load capacity.

The jib (marked green) is pivotable and a pulley block (purple) is attached to the tip of the jib to control the extension/reach.

The load is lifted and lowered by another pulley system (magenta).

In the case of Lindau, the winch for lifting and lowering the load is located in the machine room.

Built in 1936, the derrick crane is equipped with a 30 ton winch and easily lifts boats of up to 15 meters long. The actual lifting capacity has been reduced to 9 tons for this protected crane. The load winch for lifting the boats can now be operated either with a cable-bound control system, or it is still possible to control the winch directly from the engine room. On the other hand, the adjustment of the jib is still done with a hand crank!

The crane also shows how innovative the company was back then.

There are deflection rollers on the crane mast, which need to be lubricated from time to time. In order to avoid having to carry the lubricant with you when you climb up, there are lubricant depots at the crucial points which are filled. By turning a screw, the desired amount of lubricant can be pressed out of the depot and placed directly on the affected area. Even today the crane is still lubricated in this way.

Do you know of any particularly interesting cranes or lifting platforms from days gone by that are still in use today?

Share them with us in this blog post