Jumbo has shipped a 1,435-tonne shiploader measuring 135 x 25 x 43 metres. The piece of equipment was loaded on the heavy-lift vessel Jumbo Kinetic and transported from Vietnam to Canada. The shipping company spent almost two years engineering the transport solution. 

Having conducted a final loading simulation, the time had come for the engineers to put the Jumbo Kinetic, which can lift up to 3,000 tonnes, to the real test by loading this super-heavy shiploader onboard.

Based on the size of the unit and the length of its boom, loading this shiploader at Phu My Port in Vietnam was a formidable task, the company states. With stage one of the lifting operation complete, the next step was to temporarily suspend the unit above the deck so that the boom could be retracted to change the centre of gravity position. This enabled the vessel’s team to re-rig and then perform a single lift to shift the shiploader to its final stowage position where it could be secured for the sea voyage to Vancouver in Canada.

Lift Off

After a 20-day ocean voyage, the Jumbo Kinetic arrived at the Neptune terminal in Vancouver and discharge operations began. “If the engineering work at Phu My Port was not already impressive enough, our client raised the bar even further for the offloading operations with the team needing to discharge the shiploader while it was half suspended over the water”, Jumbo says.

The shiploader was then steadily manoeuvred onto the pivot point at the quayside and onto the semi-circle shaped rails above the water. Now in its final position at the Neptune Bulk Terminals in North Vancouver, this shiploader is reshaping the landscape of the port.