HMS calcutta figurehead
From Bickleigh in Devon to the National Museum of The Royal Navy, the movement of this priceless figurehead required some careful planning.
- Date: 30th October 2013
- Client: The National Museum of the Royal Navy
- Job Type: Lifting and transporting
Job summary
At 15 feet tall and with a value that is as good as priceless, the movement of this figurehead was an interesting one. Acquired by the National Museum Of The Royal Navy, it was sent to Rod Hare in Bickleigh for restoration, and, upon completion, was to be transported to the museum in Portmouth for display. Rod’s workshops are located down some tiny lanes, typical of those all around Devon where we are based, so although we are used to them it doesn’t make it any easier to fit an artic where it simply won’t go!
The easy answer of course would have been to use our rigid instead, fitted with a crane it would have made easy work of loading the antique ready for transport. However, given that the figurehead is 15 feet tall it is not that simple! Following some planning we found we could park the artic in a car park a mile or so away from the workshop, and so the only part of the puzzle left to solve was the final section through the lanes and over various bridges between these two locations…
The answer was to make use of a telehandler- mounted on a steel base the figurehead could be lifted on fork extensions and carried down the road then loaded onto the trailer. We dealt with every aspect of this maneuver from the supply and delivery of the telehandler and fork extensions, to the extracting of the museum piece from the workshop through to the escort through the lanes to the car park and loading onto our lorry.
The movement was covered extensively in the local news at the time, including television and newspaper articles, one of which can be found online here.
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