Chesapeake 1000

Chesapeake 1000 (formerly Sun 800) is a heavy lift sheerleg crane ship, owned by Donjon Marine Co., capable of lifting 1,000 ST. It is one of the largest boomable stiff-leg-derrick barges on the eastern seaboard of the United States.

The barge measures 191 ft long, with a beam of 101 ft; its draft is 20 ft.

Since late March 2024, it has been involved in salvage efforts at Baltimore, following the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse.

History
The crane barge was built by Kelso Marine in Galveston, Texas for Sun Shipbuilding in 1972 at a cost of nearly $5 million. At the time, it was the largest crane ship in the world. The crane was initially able to lift 800 ST, and so was named Sun 800.

In 1982, Sun's parent, the Sun Oil Company, sold Sun Shipbuilding to Ed Paden, who renamed the business to Pennsylvania Shipbuilding (Penn Ship); yard assets were renamed similarly, and the crane was renamed Penn 800. While en-route to Puerto Rico in the mid-1980s, the derrick barge was caught in a hurricane and the original boom was lost; it was replaced with a boom measuring 256 ft long (heel to jib) and the main fall block was upgraded to a 35-ton unit, which increased the lifting capacity to 1000 ST and the vessel was renamed Penn 1000. Tim Colton, who was the Vice President of Marketing for Penn Ship, stated the engineers originally had designed the crane to be upgraded to 1000 tons; however, after the upgrade, it sat idle most of the time, so the crane was moved to the busier Port of Norfolk, Virginia and renamed Chesapeake 1000.

In 1989, the United States Navy acquired a preferred mortgage on the floating crane as a performance guarantee for a contract to build five oil tankers, which had been awarded in 1984. After Penn Ship was unable to complete the contract, the crane barge was sold to Maritime Capital Corp, which subsequently sold it to Donjon, but the transfer was complicated by the pre-existing Navy encumbrance. The Navy released Penn Ship from its obligations in 1992, and it was renamed to its current name, Chesapeake 1000, after the acquisition was completed by Donjon Marine in 1993.

Operations
Sun 800 was built for heavy lifts, specifically the gimbal platforms and bearings, during the construction of Glomar Explorer,  which was the centerpiece of Project Azorian, a  CIA project that aimed to recover Soviet submarines during the Cold War. In 1975, Sun 800 was used to recover the 79 ft tugboat Saratoga from the Delaware River, which had sunk after being rammed by the ship it was towing. By 1978, the heaviest lift recorded by Sun 800 was a 785 ST deckhouse. In 1979, it was used to help raise the stricken barge Elizabeth Turner. Sun 800 was used for heavy lifts during the demolition of the central vertical lift spans of the CRRNJ Newark Bay Bridge in 1981, removing 4500 ST of steel in one week.

Under Donjon, which was based in Hillside, Pennsylvania, it removed a derelict steel trestle railroad bridge to Petty Island in 1991. The Chesapeake 1000 participated in the 1996 salvage of the Irving Whale. After relocating its home port to Port Newark, it also has assisted in the 2016 construction of a 960 ft laboratory building for Rockefeller University, and lifted and landed seven units to create a 485 ft, single-story platform for New York Hospital in 1995. In 2016, Chesapeake 1000 was used to recover the 84 ft tug Specialist, which sank in the Hudson River on March 12, killing three.

Following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Chesapeake 1000 and Weeks 533 were dispatched to the Port of Baltimore; they will be used first to clear several sections of the wrecked bridge and establish a temporary shipping channel, then to remove the bridge sections pinning MV Dali, and finally to remove the remaining bridge trusses outside the temporary channel. On March 30, 2024, the first section of the bridge was lifted.