Titan Crane

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Sites of memory · Year: 1887

This important machinery, now disappeared, was fundamental for the construction of the port of Santa Cruz. The incorporation of the Titan crane represented a major improvement in the work aimed at extending the docks of the pier under construction, as it allowed handling considerable masses of materials like never before.

It arrived at the port on 9 August 1887, coming from the German factory Krupp. For two days, the pieces that came on the English steamer Madeira were unloaded so that Luis Braun, a technician sent from Germany for its assembly, could assemble them, a task that lasted two months. Once the tests were completed, the aforementioned technician stayed on the island as director of the works.

The crane had been imported by the Sociedad Metropolitana de Construcción, the contractor responsible for the construction of the third section of the South dock-pier. With a net weight of 85 tonnes, ten metres high and 26 metres long arm, it could lift up to 34 tonnes and place the stone blocks, extracted from nearby quarries, into the sea to a depth of 15 metres.

It was natural that popular curiosity was great before that iron monster never before seen on the islands. Once withdrawn from service, in 1988 it was dismantled by means of a controlled explosion and its parts were taken to a foundry on the peninsula.

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