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HMS ST. Lawrence

of all the shipyard dioramas I have seen over the years I never see a crane of any sort or sheerlegs for lifting. I worked in the tree business for years and the weight of timber is so heavy a gang of workers would never even lift a deck beam off the ground and up on the deck clamps.
 
Dave Stevens (Lumberyard) said:
of all the shipyard dioramas I have seen over the years I never see a crane of any sort or sheerlegs for lifting. I worked in the tree business for years and the weight of timber is so heavy a gang of workers would never even lift a deck beam off the ground and up on the deck clamps.
Click to expand...
So how would a crane look like in that era?
 
So how would a crane look like in that era?

and that is the big question I thought about it as I plan on building the Mississippi as a under construction diorama and realized the engine parts weighed TONS so how were they cast in a foundry across the other side of the state lifted up and transported to the shipyard. Once at the yard how were they lifted and moved into place?
This led me to wonder how these heavy wooden beams and parts were lifted and set in place. I have a couple blocks of wood out in my yard, they are less than 1/2 the size of an average deck lodging knee and i could not even lift it off the ground and move it. Once while i was working in the log field a guy stopped in and asked if he could have a 3 inch thick slab off the end of a log, i said sure. He said ok i will just put it in the trunk of my car, i said ya ok go ahead. a slab of Oak three inches thick and 22 inches round is about 300 pounds.
So how did they do it? i don't know
 
you can see in this old painting what is called sheerlegs and they were used to un load cargo and small cranes on tracks. but these type of cranes did not swivel from side to side so you can not swing around pick up a beam or part and swing it over the hull to place it. There must of been "construction" cranes of some sort that can move side to side and up and down.

Cranes (detail of larger print).jpg
 
even though Kingston Naval yard was a royal English yard most of the shipwrights were French from Quebec. The shipwright who built the St Lawrence William Bell was Irish who worked in a French yard in Quebec and I think his brother John had a yard in Quebec.
could be why the framing of the St Lawrence was a French system of framing and not the standard English bends and filler system.
 
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