Hoisting devices used for cargo handling and other operations. Cranes are required to hoist, luff and slew. Separate motors are required for each motion.
- Cargo cranes, cargo-handling cranes – Cranes for bulk cargo, containers, general cargo, or palletised cargo.
- Construction cranes – Floating cranes for carrying out assembly-work in calm water as well as in unprotected waters.
- Deck cranes – Cranes that do not handle cargo: provision cranes, hose handling cranes, etc.
- Floating cranes – Usually barge type hulls provided with large cranes used for various heavy lift tasks, salvage and wreck removals. Semi-submersible crane ships are used to carry out offshore installation work.
- Gantry crane – A hoisting device, usually on rails, having a lifting hook suspended from a car, which is movable horizontally in a direction transverse to its rails.
Gantry-type hatch cover crane – A deck crane used for handling the hatch covers and portable bulkheads.
- Hose-handling cranes, manifold cranes – Cylinder-luffing cranes used to handle tanker cargo hoses. A hose crane must be explosion-proof. Consequently, hydraulic motors are usually supplied with fluid from a central pump unit located in a risk-free zone.
- Monorail provision crane – Rail-mounted trolley that can be moved athwartship and is fitted with rack and pinion drive.
- Offshore cranes – A range of shipboard cranes and floating cranes that work offshore, also cranes mounted on offshore installations.
- Offshore cranes working on deck – Cranes on offshore installations not used as supply cranes because of their location.
- Offshore supply cranes – Cranes located on fixed or floating offshore installations for loading and unloading supply vessels.
- Twin cranes – Two cranes mounted on one platform, which can be rotated horizontally through 360°. Each crane can be operated independently, when required the two cranes can be linked together to operate in a twin mode. In this case, both cranes are controlled from the cab of one of them.