A portainer (also known as a container crane, container handling gantry crane, quay crane, ship-to-shore crane or a STS crane) is a large dockside crane in the form of a specialised type of gantry crane used to load and unload container ships, and only seen at container terminals. The term Portainer is a registered trademark of http://www.pacecocorp.com/ Paceco Corp. who is generally believed to have delivered the first Container Crane to a marine terminal in Alameda, CA in the 1960s. Container cranes have a special lifting device called a spreader bar (also known as Spreader or Expandable Spreader) for loading and discharging of containers.