Whilton Marinas Famous Crane Hercules 

Over the years we have expanded the marina and in 2018 we took the latest step with the acquisition of our new fantastic motorised lifting hoist, in addition to the hoist a 9,000sq ft narrowboat workshop was built to enable three 70ft boats to be worked on out of the water and under cover.

It all started in July 2018 when we had our new Wise Boat Hoist delivered, capable of lifting boats up to 40 tonne and up to 72ft long x 12 ft wide this gives us the flexibility of lifting narrowboats and widebeams in and out of the marina at a moments notice.

A new wharf has also been constructed to allow the Wise Hoist to manoeuvre over the water and lift boats in and out of the marina.

We ran a competition on social media to name our new hoist and that is how ‘Hercules’ was born which is very apt given the weights he has to lift!

Hercules is used in conjunction with our new workshop facilities where we are now available for customers to book for the following works on their narrowboats or widebeamed boats...

• Pressure Washing
• Blacking and Anodes
• Hull Replating
• Stern Gears
• Surveys
• Boat lifts on/off transporters

Hercules has proved to be extremely adaptable, we control Hercules with a remote control and in carousel mode he is able to pivot on his own axis and with four wheel steering it makes tight manoeuvres a lot easier.

Here is a short video of Hercules in action

The boat lifting crane is probably the first purpose built facility of this kind on the UK inland waterways system. It will reduce our carbon footprint as a company because there will no longer be a necessity to have cranes travelling to and from our site for the purpose of lifting boats out of the water.

He has been very adaptable over the years and now forms an integral part of the ‘team’