Level luffing crane

Level-luffing is most important when careful movement of a load near ground level is required, such as in construction or shipbuilding.

An early form of level-luffing gear was the "Toplis" design, invented by a Stothert & Pitt engineer in 1914.

The usual mechanism for level-luffing in modern cranes is to add an additional "horse head" section to the top of the jib.

The first of these systems used mechanical clutches between luffing and hoist drums, giving simplicity and a "near level" result.

Some early systems used controllable hydraulic gearboxes to achieve the same result, but these added complexity and cost and so were only popular where high accuracy was needed, such as for shipbuilding.