ALS ships excavator to earthquake zone

UK-based Abnormal Load Services (ALS) organised the shipment of a R984C Liebherr UHR telescopic demolition machine from Hull to New Zealand for help with the country's restoration work after the 2011 earthquake.

ALS shipped the demolition machine, which has a 24 metre long, almost 5 m high, 62T Kocurek telescopic demolition arm, on behalf of UK demolition company Coleman & Company. The specially chartered vessel arrived in Lyttleton Port, Christchurch, New Zealand.

The R984C Liebherr is now believed to be the largest machine of its kind in the southern hemisphere. Getting it there, however, presented more than a few challenges for the ALS team.

To assess the potential shipping configurations and lashing and securing requirements ALS carried out a pre-shipment survey of the machine during its final UK operation.

As this particular shipment was time sensitive and the only available heavy lift ship in position did not have heavy enough cranes to lift the cargo and a ro-ro option was not possible, ALS arranged to split the main body of the machine into two parts.

The machine comprised eight sections and was lifted onto the vessel with the ship's crane. ALS then had to overcome strong wind conditions to ensure the tandem lift operation of the cargo onto the specialist heavy lift charter vessel was carried out safely and without damage.