A Sandy Conundrum for Project Freight Forwarder Allseas Global

05 February 2014

THAILAND – UK – Part of the fun of being a project freight forwarder is facing up to the completely unexpected challenge, the sort of job which arises once in a ‘blue moon’ and after all the puzzled looks and tearing of hair gives the greatest satisfaction when finally it arrives safely at the consignee’s door. Such was the challenge facing Allseas Global project team when asked to undertake the ocean shipping of a private yacht to the UK.

The request to the Allseas specialist team involved collection of the 26,000 kilogramme vessel from a shipyard in Thailand, unfortunately a defunct yard in Rayong on the beach front with no feasible road access due to size restrictions. A plan was devised which involved moving the yacht on a cradle to the beach where arrangements were made for a crane to lift the yacht and cradle onto a barge which would subsequently transport them to Laem Chebang to meet up with ocean going vessel for shipment to the UK.

The problem was however that the yacht was sitting on sand, not the best surface for hoisting such a valuable weight whilst hanging from the crane. The Allseas team got around that problem by resting steel platforms on the ground giving a sufficiently sound footing for the crane to work on.

The next difficulty was to get the incoming barge close enough for the crane to load the yacht aboard, solved by bringing the barge in at the highest point of the tide and mooring her until stranded. Whilst the barge sat on, comparatively, dry land the crane was able to load the yacht aboard and, when suitably secured, the team could wait for the rising waters to refloat the entire operation.

After all this the rest of the movement must have seemed comparatively simple as the barge sailed downriver to the deep water port where the multi-purpose, ocean going, vessel used its on-board crane to lift the yacht directly from the barge and onto its deck, ready to complete the ocean leg of the trip to the UK.

Author: Mark Binge, Group Commercial Manager

Also published on: Handy Shipping Guide