The I think the bearings are all flat roller bearings I.E. not thrust bearings so presume the gear angles must counter any such thrusts, but I can check on Monday, I'd of taken a photo of the one that failed on the last gearbox, but it was just a pile of metal bits in the bottom of a bucket
The shaft was so damaged it'll need metal spraying and skimming (that's a clever process if you ever get to see it), not sure what they will do with the housing as it's cast, though to be fair the scouring was pretty light, but being a casting it may well be junked or the bearing seat may be opened out and a sleeve heat shrunk onto the new bearing to make up the gap.
There's something quite special about shiny machined metal I think.
Steph, no idea on price but I can find out on Monday, I think we hold two of these as spares in our stores, as well as several others for other different cranes, I think our stores runs at around £15-18 million stock levels. We've just ordered three new cranes and got them cheap at £8 million each, cheap because they were already ordered and part built when the original buyers dropped out and being part built we get them in just under a year, normally it's about three years from contract signing to end of commissioning and working the first vessel.
I'll grab some in situ shots on Monday, it's very difficult to get a scale of just how big all this kit is.