April 25 - ALE's latest range of widening trailers in South Africa are being used for their first job, which involves the transport of eight tugboats from a warehouse to a floating dock in Durban, Kwazulu-Natal.
The first tugboat - each of which weigh in at 800 tonnes - was jacked up onto 36 axle lines of the new widening trailers using four 500-tonne capacity climbing jacks, before being transported 500 m from the shipyard's warehouse to a floating dock.
"The trailers were ideally suited for this project due to their high capacity of 45 tonnes per axle line, their extremely strong spine beams, which reduce the need for temporary central support, as well as being ideally suited to ALE South Africa's road and bridge clearances," said ALE project manager Zayno Myburgh.
"The trailers are currently lined up to work on several transportation contracts already and will continue to assist with the execution of the seven remaining tug boats. The project is expected to conclude in September 2017 with the loading, transportation and staging of one tugboat every three months."
HLPFI reported in January that along with Goldhofer, ALE had developed a new range of widening trailers for South Africa that can be mechanically widened from 3 m up to the desired width for a particular project.
