Thunderbolt Global Delivers Oversized Static Pieces with Cooperation from PCN Partners
29th March 2022
Thunderbolt Global Logistics finished an important project in late February for one of their top clients who had a critical shipment from Turkey that needing delivering to their customer in Seattle, Washington on the North-West coast of the USA.
The shipments consisted of 9 pieces of static cargo - the specifications of the largest 3 pieces are detailed below. It also included 6 other pieces which were not oversized and delivered on 2 flat-bed trucks.
- 17,209kg / 6.5 x 6.0 x 4.9m
- 2,500kg / 4.9 x 4.9 x 1.5m
- 14,750kg / 4.5 x 4.5 x 3.5m
Director at Thunderbolt Global Logistics, Jim Shapiro explains the operations; "From Turkey, we had our PCN partner, BATI Shipping arrange the transport from the factory in Turkey to Zeebrugge in Belgium on a short-sea RORO vessel due to the fact there was no service option from Turkey to Seattle or Tacoma. Once the cargo arrived in Zeebrugge, it had to be transferred from the arrival terminal to the Wallenius Terminal at night. PCN members in Belgium, Europe Cargo took care of this portion of the journey and set up the shipment from Zeebrugge to the Port of Tacoma on Wallenius Wilhelmsen Line. Both BATI Shipping and Europe Cargo did a great job.
The Wallenius vessel from Zeebrugge to Tacoma was just 1 day late from the schedule at the time of export - unheard of these days for most ocean carriers. We had a deadline to deliver by a certain date and the vessel being relatively on time was critical. There were no issues with customs clearance as we had prior cleared the shipment before the arrival in Tacoma.
Due to their size, the two widest pieces could only be delivered on the weekend at night between 1-6am and we had completed and offloaded them by 2.30am. The final piece was delivered during the day on the Friday and offloaded at night once the crane was set up for the other pieces. The remaining balance of the shipment was picked up and delivered on the following Monday morning."
"The Thunderbolt team of Linda Serio in our Commercial Rates Department and Cathy Murphy in our Import Operations Department teamed up to provide an excellent service for our customer. It was truly a team effort."
The photos below show the two widest pieces on their trucks outside the terminal gate (with Mount Rainier in the distance) where they had to wait until 1am before they could depart. The third cylindrical piece at 4.5m wide was able to be transported during the day.
