{"id":401,"date":"2010-04-22T20:18:55","date_gmt":"2010-04-22T20:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/?p=401"},"modified":"2013-11-16T23:56:25","modified_gmt":"2013-11-16T23:56:25","slug":"inchgreen-drydock-cranes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/high-places\/inchgreen-drydock-cranes\/","title":{"rendered":"Inchgreen Drydock Cranes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Inchgreen drydock in Greenock is still an active site &#8211; currently leased to BAE Systems, it was last used to assemble a giant floating dock for Faslane naval base. It also once played host to the Queen Elizabeth liner &#8211; it&#8217;s a pretty big dock \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>The dock has three goose-necked level-luffing cranes &#8211; one of them made by Sir William Arrol, so of course that&#8217;s the one I went for (plus, it&#8217;s the biggest). This took two trips &#8211; first time, with no harness, I wasn&#8217;t going to attempt to get to the end. Second time, success&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/cycleologist\/4431964784\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4015\/4431964784_1e6cb0268c_z.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/cycleologist\/4431964784\/\" target=\"_blank\"><!--more--><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/cycleologist\/4413451584\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4063\/4413451584_72dac3c54f_z.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/cycleologist\/4431962178\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4015\/4431962178_c556484b3b_z.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/cycleologist\/4431958346\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4005\/4431958346_7b3b2ae81d_z.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/cycleologist\/4412695633\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2794\/4412695633_9a81125c0f_z.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/cycleologist\/4412687773\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2690\/4412687773_d524d9a90f_z.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/cycleologist\/4431953932\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2691\/4431953932_d4c451d59b_z.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/cycleologist\/4431941194\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4036\/4431941194_2db40857c2_z.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/cycleologist\/4431944910\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4011\/4431944910_20d3004359_z.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/cycleologist\/4431949250\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2727\/4431949250_ac221c84e4_z.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a bit of a slog to the end &#8211; a hundred steps up to the cab level, then two hundred steps up to the top, then another hundred down to the end of the jib &#8211; most of it very exposed with bugger-all to clip in to. Fun, though \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>Another visit: So I realised I had been a bit lazy and a bit of a wuss for not doing the other two cranes &#8211; there&#8217;s so few cranes left on the Clyde it seems a shame to miss any out. I thought these would be worse than the first one because they&#8217;re open lattice, but with the boom at a more sensible angle they were actually really nice to climb. It was blowing a gale, though, so hard to get really sharp pictures&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/cycleologist\/4469680956\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4046\/4469680956_0c59b7c42b_z.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/cycleologist\/4469682654\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4052\/4469682654_53a0b6be15_z.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/cycleologist\/4468906017\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2782\/4468906017_5f08e6bfe9_z.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/cycleologist\/4469688196\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4061\/4469688196_f8934711f0_z.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/cycleologist\/4468911387\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2693\/4468911387_878d5e75a1_z.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>On the second one, got to the top platform to find it wasn&#8217;t there &#8211; just a couple of girders with some scraps of rusty steel hanging from them. Wasn&#8217;t going to stand on that, so sat on the top steps of the ladder itself&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>A British Pathe film of the QE2 entering the drydock:<\/p>\n<h2>QE2 INTO DRY DOCK<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" name=\"pathe_flash_embed\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishpathe.com\/embed.php?archive=45544\" height=\"264\" width=\"352\" frameborder=\"1\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Inchgreen drydock in Greenock is still an active site &#8211; currently leased to BAE Systems, it was last used to assemble a giant floating dock for Faslane naval base. It also once played host to the Queen Elizabeth liner &#8211; it&#8217;s a pretty big dock \ud83d\ude42 The dock has three goose-necked level-luffing cranes &#8211; one [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-places"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/4431949250_ac221c84e4_z.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3yGoo-6t","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1109,"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions\/1109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}