June 8 - Welcome to HLPFI's Friday Flyer, our round-up of news from the last few days, spiced up with a little anecdotal commentary from the editorial team. This week's edition is sponsored by DHL Global Forwarding Industrial Projects division, which prom
With the UK's Diamond Jubilee celebrations finally concluded; the bunting has been taken down and the normal soggy English summer weather has returned. We have a very nautical theme to the start of this week's newsletter, as we look forward to the start of the Euro 2012 football tournament. (The editorial director has put his money on Germany as eventual champions).
London was not the only city with a spectacular flotilla during the week. New York's Hudson River played host to a flotilla that really was out of this world. The space shuttle Enterprise was towed past the Statue of Liberty and One World Trade Center on a barge to be tied up near its new home at a museum on New York's Hudson River. Weeks Marine and Bay Crane lent their expertise in this movement.
On the other side of the continent, a 20 m Japanese pontoon which authorities consider was swept away by last year's tsunami, washed up on an Oregon beach, leaving authorities scratching their heads on how it was to be removed and, who was going to foot the bill for the recovery.
Meanwhile, in Canada, HMCS Ojibwa completed its 12-day journey from Halifax to Hamilton, with a little help fromHeddle Marine Service Inc and McKeil Marine Limited and the St Lawrence River system.
On the other side of the Pacific, Damen Shipyards launched the first of its newly designed Stan Pontoon (SPo) 12032 units, its biggest ever and part of a series of 34 pontoons currently being built. Damen Pontoons & Bargeshas started building a second new design: the Damen Crane Barge (CBa) 6324, a transshipment barge for handling dry bulk and container operations.
It was "hello" from IATA this week as it welcomed AirBridgeCargo Airlines, part of the Volga-Dnepr Group and Russia's largest all-cargo carrier, as an active member and it was also "hello" to Shantanu Bhadkamkar, chairman of Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations in India (FFFAI), who has been elected as managing director of the International Federation of Customs Brokers Association (IFCBA).
It was a less friendly ?hello? from ABG Sundal Collier Norge ASA and Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB,advisers to Fairstar, which, having performed a valuation of Fairstar based on several methods, described theDockwise mandatory offer for Fairstar as 'not fair from a financial point of view'.
How long has your longest shipment ever taken, weeks, months even? HLPFI is prepared to bet no shipment you have ever handled has taken 12 million years to complete! A life-like and full-sized reconstruction of the jawbone and mouth of a 12 million year old sea monster named after the author of Moby Dick, has been transported from South America to Europe by Rhoon, Netherlands-based Steder Group. Dubbed 'The Biggest Mouth Ever', the reconstruction of the jawbone and mouth of the Peruvian predatory sperm whale Livyatan melvillei, made by theHistorical Museum of Lima, was shipped from Peru to Rotterdam for exhibition at the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam.
During the week we hope we were on the 'right lines' when we covered the movement of more rail cars by Multitrade Spain, a member of the Cargo Equipment Experts (CEE) network, after it was awarded a second contract to ship 108 rail cars for the new metro line in Santiago de Chile. Meanwhile, on another continent, we revealed that South Africa is on track for domestic railway loco manufacture with the news that the first in a series of 100 new class 43General Electric diesel-electric locomotives for Transnet Freight Rail has been delivered.
Notable shipments reported this week included Expeditors' Project Cargo Services division handling a huge gas turbine and generator destined for Rayoiner Performance Fiber in Augusta, USA for its Fernandina Beach processing mill; IAG Cargo, in conjunction with UK-based forwarder, Pinnacle International Freight, transporting the Mid Infra Red Instrument (MIRI) - a key component of the James Webb Space Telescope - from the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, United States; Neo Air Charterhandling the urgent transportation of two giant track rollers from Frankfurt Hahn airport, Germany to Islamabad, Pakistan; and Care by Air undertaking humanitarian relief missions to Nepal.
Work is well underway on issue 27 of HLPFI which will include features on Korea, UK, Canada, and Belgium; renewable energy logistics; training and certification; packing and crating; spreader bars, beams, shackles, slings and ropes; as well as our annual heavy lift airfreight and airlines supplement.
For further information on editorial or commercial participation in the magazine or the Friday Flyer, contact Ian Matheson on +44 1689 857631 or ian@heavyliftpfi.com
