I worked with a guy who wintered there years ago. Told me a story about how one of the bulldozers drove off the "road" (the hard pack ice) and sank about a metre into the snow. No-one could figure out what to do. It was too heavy to tow and they didn't have a crane that could lift it (would put too much pressure on the ice and then the crane would be stuck too. So they left it for a while, until everyone got sick of looking at it, and they just blew up the ice underneath it and let it sink.

I have no idea if that's true or not.

But it's a great story

It did look like the crane did lift too long, didn't see slack in the line before it had done 3/4 of the way. Probably to avoid the unstable equilibrium that forms when it's perfectly upside down. But yeah, doesn't really matter, the rate at which it comes back up looks sufficient that it works with out that little tuck. This is done in calm waters in that harbor, when it's choppy the waves and unstable equilibrium can't really happen.

What!? That guy off the crane didn't die?

Never going to happen. Those 4 cranes you see at the beginning? Been there since the 70s. The works are more tied up with law suits and litigation than a microsoft euro trial.

Someone asked about the ferris wheel shots on Vimeo:

DAMPDESIGN 1 week ago

thanks chris! In the ferris wheel I placed the camera's on a tripod close to the window. 1 shot per sec.

How did they get those crane shots? Fantastic.

That was so, so dangerous. I've spent most of my life around boats and for me that was like watching one of those videos where the kids climb a crane and do pull ups off the top. So no-one got hurt, but it's way more from luck than judgement. Stupid people.

What people with a jones for physics, kinetic energy, and the wonder of a child do with a decommissioned crane bucket....for the fucking win!

I live right by those cranes. It definitely is not SF, definitely not safe but it is still awesome. Video is rather annoying, who cares what people think anyway? We are all living in a shit capitalist system, UNITE and fight back.

He also hired a big arse crane!

Runaway crane, never coming back...

Liebherr, German for Crane Porn.

True story.

What was the plan here?
That derailed train wasn't going anywhere without a crane.

*kill
already here
http://videosift.com/video/Denny-Crane-on-Gun-Control

Hmmm.. Google suggests that the "Pacific Bless" is a cargo ship... it does have a lot of cranes on it. Either way, a wreck would have sucked.
Also note: That loud clattering in the video is the anchor chains spooling out. The smoke you see at the front of the ship is coming off of the anchor winches.