Titanic Quarter #10: Musgrave Channel and Dock
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Musgrave Dock is currently the largest dry dock on earth in use.
There is a larger dock in Portugal but it is no longer in use.
Samson and Goliath are the twin shipbuilding gantry cranes situated at Queen's Island, Belfast, Northern Ireland. The cranes, which were named after the Biblical figures Samson and Goliath, dominate the Belfast skyline and are landmark structures of the city.
The cranes are situated in the shipyard of Harland & Wolff and were constructed by the German engineering firm Krupp, with Goliath being completed in 1969 and Samson, in 1974. Goliath stands 96 metres (315 ft) tall, while Samson is taller at 106 metres (348 ft). Goliath, the smaller of the two sits slightly further inland closer to Belfast City. At the time Harland & Wolff was one of the largest shipbuilders in the world. The announcement that they were to be built was an important event at the time.
Each crane has a span of 140 metres (459 ft) and can lift loads of up to 840 tonnes to a height of 70 metres (230 ft), making a combined lifting capacity of over 1,600 tonnes, one of the largest in the world. Prior to commissioning, the cranes were tested up to 1,000 tonnes, which bent the gantry downwards by over 30 centimetres (12 in). The dry dock at the base of the cranes is the largest in the world in use measuring 556 m × 93 m.
On 4 April 2007, Goliath crashed into the long jib of smaller rail-mounted "Henson" tower crane, sending the smaller crane tumbling to the ground. The smaller crane weighed 95 tonnes and stood at a height of 25 m, compared to Samson's 70 m. Three industrial painters working on another rail-mounted crane were close to the jib as it fell, eventually crashing onto the ground. Information about the incident was not released until mobile-phone footage of the event was published on YouTube.
In October 2007, Goliath re-entered service after five years, an occurrence described by a company spokesperson as underlining the yard's growing workload.
William George Nicholson Geddes, CBE DSc FRSE FEng (29 July 1913 – 10 November 1993) was a Scottish civil engineer.
George Geddes was born in Oldhamstocks, East Lothian and studied civil engineering at Edinburgh University, gaining a "blue" in football. He worked for the City Engineer in Edinburgh, then Sir William Arrol & Company, and F.A. Macdonald & Partners under William Fairhurst, before joining Babtie, Shaw and Morton in 1942. He became a partner of the firm in 1950 and senior partner from 1976 to 1978. His specialist experience was structural engineering which led to an interest in hydro-electric projects, dams, shipyards, docks and industrial developments.
One of Geddes' most notable projects, under the overall direction of James Arthur Banks and later constructed by the contractor Marples Ridgway, was his contribution to the design of the Allt na Lairige dam in Argyllshire in the 1950s. This was the first concrete dam in western Europe, and possibly the world, to be prestressed by using high tensile steel bars, bolted either end, to compress the structure.
Later Geddes was in charge of Backwater Dam, the first in the UK to use a chemical grout cut-off. One of his outstanding achievements was the major shipbuilding dock at the head of the Musgrave Channel in Belfast for Harland and Wolff. The dock was the largest in the World when it was completed in 1970, having been designed and built scarcely two years after the decision was taken to proceed.
As well as being active in Scottish branches of professional institutions, he was elected President of all three of the Institutions in which he took a keen interest: the Institution of Structural Engineers in 1971-72, the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland 1977-79, and the Institution of Civil Engineers between November 1979 and November 1980. In 1975, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1978. In 1980 he received an Honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of Edinburgh.
Geddes was an accomplished footballer, playing for Queen's Park F.C. in 1936, and serving from 1985 to 1988 as their President and eventually becoming a Patron of the Club, the oldest in Scotland.
Cache is a 35mm film container covered in black tape and magnetically attached.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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