Port Everglades in Ft. Lauderdale, FL is one of the deepest ports in all of Florida that has a huge influx of tourists each week as they board any one of the almost 20 cruise ships that call Port Everglades home. Each year, every cruise ship is taken into dry dock for about a week for necessary repairs, to remodel sections of the ship and create an overall better experience for their passengers. The M/S Maasdam of the Holland American Line started her dry dock experience at Port Everglades, where hundreds of containers were loaded with Sims Crane’s 350-ton hydraulic mobile crane the “Dawn Ann” and their 220-ton conventional lattice boom truck crane with supplies for the remodel process. Once all the supplies are on board; a full day’s work, for CCO operators Tim Brown & Matt Boza, she will head for the Bahamas and during the voyage workers on board will begin the process of stripping the interior and having everything ready once they arrive to their dry dock, for the debris & trash to be removed and new supplies to be loaded to finish the process. On her voyage back to Port Everglades, workers will make the final touches and clean up of the ship, once back in her Port, Sims Crane will unload all of the containers and leftover supplies, before her passengers board the newly remodeled ship the next day. Working a job like this is described as “controlled chaos” by Bob Kraft, an CCO operator for Sims Crane who handles all the job arrangements at Port Everglades, this week he’ll be handling two ships that are getting ready for dry dock, in addition to the normal lifts that occur on a daily basis by Sims Crane at the Port.
