CL160, a semi-rigid airship, will be the largest ever made, with a lifting capacity of 160 tonnes.

ECONOMIST: Pushing the envelope

The C17 has a much greater lifting capacity than the aircraft the French use, the BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris said.

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We trade with both Foreign-flagged and US-flagged assets and have a high concentration of heavy lift vessels between 400 and 800-ton lifting capacity.

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There are many ships that have 150-ton lifting capacity in the modern fleet, and where as years ago we traditionally called things over 150-ton as heavy lift cargo, that story is different today.

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The Vanguard will have 50% greater lifting capacity and 70% greater deck area than the largest heavy lift ship now in service, the Blue Marlin, also owned by Dockwise, which can lift 73, 000 tonnes.

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But this would eat into its cargo-lifting capacity.

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Airships demonstrate a law of increasing returns: doubling the length increases the surface area (and hence weight) by a factor of four while the volume (and hence lifting capacity) goes up by a factor of eight.

ECONOMIST: Pushing the envelope

Mr Carter said the lorry's rating capacity limiter, which measures lifting operations, and its emergency stop buttons were not working.

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