South Africa-headquartered heavy transport and rigging specialist Vanguard has added a specialist wind turbine blade trailer to its fleet.
The trailers, which are already operational, can receive and transport wind blades from vessels to laydown areas in either top or tail orientation. They were used to transport the first wind blades to ever go through the port of Richards Bay in South Africa, the company said.
Vanguard claims that these trailers are a more cost-effective solution to the ports and terminals market, given their ability to work in confined spaces and due to the lack of disruption that they cause.
Drawbars are at either end of the trailers, enabling efficient shunting and accommodating extensive wind blade overhangs when loaded in the reverse orientation. This means that less space is needed for laydown areas. Bespoke beams are used to mobilise components depending on length configurations, with the first project handling wind blades which measured 90.65 m in length.
Still ongoing, this project includes the handling and transportation of 75 wind blades from the port of Richards Bay to a laydown area outside the port, before being transhipped to Vanguard’s Scheuerle rotor blade transport systems (RBTS) trailers and transported to a site around 500 km away.
“Despite the challenging restrictions at the port, the team have been able to efficiently receive and transport over 15 blades a day to the laydown area, regardless of the orientation,” said Laura Hodgkinson, senior manager at Vanguard.
By June 2025, Vanguard expects the trailers to be available at both the port of Richards Bay and the port of Coega within the company’s laydown/handling areas.
In December 2024, Vanguard transported a 50 m-long cold box from Namibia to Zambia.
