Awakening the 8 Year Old Kid in All of Us

Ever wondered what it would be like to see a 90 metric tonne (nearly 200,000lbs!!) real-life sized Tonka truck hoisted off the dock and lowered into a tween deck in a ship just with just enough space to fit it?


Well, I never did either until we turned the corner on the dock and I saw this huge yellow machinery towering over us with just the black tires being almost twice as tall as Rob.

This one of the really cool parts of Rob's job. The BBC Zarate was loading these trucks in Singapore (which is rare to watch a loading here) so since this job is the reason we are here and all, Rob and I decided to go onboard and watch it.

I didn't realize all the engineering that went behind loading. For instance, as these huge cranes pick up the truck off the dock side, it pumps in water on the sea side of the ship to counter-balance the weight. Ironically, if the ship didn't take IN water, it would capsize!

Also, there are 2 cranes onboard to help in loading cargo; while one crane was hoisting the truck, the other was on standby to aid in the balancing act. If the ship started to favor one side, then the other crane could swing out to help correct the center of bouyancy. Luckily it didn't need to do this...although Rob said it's happened before where the ship didn't take on water and 16.5 tons of cargo started swinging making the ship rock like a swing set! The crane operator had to drop the cargo into the water! Yikes!

Anyway, I think I learned more in these few hours of watching the cargo load than I did in my shipping classes when getting my maritime degree!

This was as cool as when TJ took me to see how the planes are contructed at Cessna. It was really neat to see. I know the Whitfield men would have liked to see this...so in your honour, I have posted a few pictures...these are taken with Rob's camera phone.