US industrial material handling crane manufacturer and supplier Bohl Crane has installed a series of overhead cranes with R&M Materials Handling hoists and controls at the factory of Thunderbird /Formula power boat manufacturer in Decatur, Indiana.
Thunderbird builds world class power boats
The Thunderbird company produces fiberglass boats from seven to 15 metres in length and is now looking to add larger, heavier vessels to its product range. The plant has an overall headroom of just over six metres, with the crane bridge height of 5.5 metres, while the building width/crane span is 14.3 metres. The company was looking to replace its cranes with higher capacity matched performance cranes. The cranes cover a total of eight bays.
The boat sterns are heavier than the bows, so Bohl proposed a combination of eight and six ton cranes, with tandem radio remote controls for synchronised lifting. In addition to the overhead cranes, Bohl provided eight new two ton underhung R&M cranes.
Bohl project engineer Thomas Velker said: “There is a pond out front and pool bays inside. The pools are used to test the motors in the boats, they use the cranes to lift the boats in and out of these pools.”
“We had to come in and reinforce their building steel along the runways and building columns so that the runways for the cranes could handle the additional capacity. We also had to keep our sizing within the existing crane window despite the need for even bigger cranes, we did this by notching the girders and other methods.”
“One of our more experienced salespeople had the idea to add intermediate columns in the middle of the runway. This alone allowed them to keep all the runways and have minimal downtime.”
The boats are lifted into pools in order to test the motors
Founded in 1924, Bohl Crane’s product line includes specialised monorails, cranes and engineered lifting devices, including automated systems, bridge cranes, gantry cranes, jib cranes, marine lifts and customised overhead cranes.
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