As one of the UK’s premier low loader and HIAB crane hire companies, HJ Logistics cover all of the main ports and docks in the South East of England. We can deliver or collect a wide variety of loads and deliver them to most UK and European destinations.

Importing or exporting shipping containers is a fairly straightforward process due to their uniform size and many transport logistics/haulage companies specialise in this field, but what about those loads that aren’t suitable to be transported this way?

Difficult or unusual loads

As we specialise in the transport of more awkward loads such as excavators, wheeled loaders, farming machinery and factory equipment etc. we’re the ideal choice for those more unusual scenarios. We can arrange the shipping and deal with much of the paperwork in order to make your experience less stressful and trouble-free.

Boat and yacht transport

We can also take care of boat and yacht transport whether or not the boat is on the water or in dry dock and our mobile HIAB cranes are capable of lifting boats directly from the water if necessary. We can safely and reliably collect/deliver your boat to/from any UK destination,

Ports and docks we cover in the South East

Chatham Docks
London Medway Head Office
Archway House
Sheerness Dock
Sheerness
ME12 1RS

Port of Dover
Harbour House
Marine Parade
Dover
Kent
CT17 9BU

Port of Felixstowe
Tomline House
The Dock
Felixstowe
IP11 3SY

London Gateway
1 London Gateway,
Stanford-le-Hope,
Essex,
SS17 9DY

Newhaven Port & Properties Ltd
Administration Office
East Quay
Newhaven
East Sussex
BN9 0BN

Portsmouth Port
Port Manager’s Department
Whale Island Way
Portsmouth
PO2 8EB
United Kingdom

Southampton Port
Vessel Traffic Services Centre
Ocean Gate
Atlantic Way
Southampton
SO14 3QN

Shoreham Port
Nautilus House
90-100 Albion Street
Southwick
Brighton
BN42 4ED

and

Sussex Port Forwarding
Gate 1
Basin Road South
Portslade
BN41 1WF
(Delivery address for Stevedoring, Ship’s Agency & Haulage)

Port of Tilbury London Limited
Leslie Ford House
Tilbury
Essex
RM18 7EH

HJ Logistics are the perfect choice for low-loader and long-reach, high-load mobile HIAB crane hire for all ports and docks in South East England. Our main areas of operation are Kent, Surrey, Essex, Sussex, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire & London.

Cranes before the steam era

At the pinnacle of today’s modern mobile crane design we have obvious examples such as HIAB‘s hydraulic, truck mounted crane; but what about the pre-diesel, pre-hydraulic days? What source of power did they use to lift such heavy loads? Well, according to modern-day scholars, the very first use of cranes can be attributed to the Ancient Greeks.

Back then, even without the availability of fossil fuels, cranes were still widely used in construction projects to lift heavy stone slabs and wooden beams into place. This was typically done using the muscle power of either men or animals but, if a river was nearby, the crane could be powered by a water wheel. Furthermore, if there was sufficient wind, cranes could also be powered by a windmill. This was the case for many centuries until the coming of the Industrial Revolution. when everything radically changed.

During this time, steam-powered engines of all kinds were at the zenith of modern design and technology. Much like the force created when water is pushed from the spout of a kettle, the coal-powered steam cranes of yesteryear used a similar principle to generate the force needed to lift heavy objects.

The Fairbairn Steam Crane, Bristol

Bristol’s very own Fairbairn Steam Crane is an excellent example of this. It gets its name from Sir William Fairbairn, who patented the design in 1850 and is the only surviving working example of a Fairbairn steam crane left in existence. If you want to see it ‘up close and personal’, it can be found at Bristol Docks on the quayside at Princes Wharf and it’s looked after by Bristol’s M Shed Museum.

Watch the video

Lifting capacity

Although many of Fairbairn’s cranes were powered by hand and therefore unable to lift very heavy loads, the steam-powered Bristol crane could lift an impressive 35 tons. Prior to this, none of the dock’s 17 other cranes could lift more than 3 tons. This limit on weight capacity was increasingly becoming a problem for Bristol Docks because ship design was changing so rapidly during the 1870s. The Industrial Revolution was in full-swing and metal hulled ships were becoming much bigger and their cargos were becoming heavier; if bigger cranes were not commissioned, Bristol Docks would lose out to other competing docks.

Since Bristol Docks had already invested heavily in building a railway line adjacent to the harbour quay, the decision was taken to spend £3,600 on a desperately needed steam crane. So, in 1875, the order was placed and construction commenced. After 3 years, The Fairbairn Steam Crane in Bristol was completed in August of 1878.

Lacklustre performance

You’d think that after spending £3,600 on the crane (which was a considerable amount back then), it would be working flat out and earning its keep every day but this wasn’t the case. For example, in 1890, the Fairbairn Steam Crane only operated for a mere 16 days during the entire year and only made a profit of 11 shillings and sixpence. Even worse, from 1903 to 1909 it only made a total of 143 lifts in 6 years!

Why was it used so little?

The main problem was the exact same one that led to the banana-shaped Fairbairn Steam Crane being commissioned in the first place – the sheer speed and pace of technology and design. By the time the crane was ready to work, ship size and design had once again made a quantum leap forward. Because of this, the Fairbairn Steam Crane’s limited jib simply couldn’t reach far enough to remove things like a ship’s engine or boiler when it needed repairing, despite being capable of lifting the weight. The Dock owners did consider raising the crane onto a stone tower to extend its reach but by this time, the writing was on the wall. Even as early as 1892, hydraulic cranes began appearing at Bristol Docks and several years later, electric cranes were being installed too. Unfortunately, this was the beginning of the end for the Fairbairn Steam Crane.

Saving grace

Despite the Fairbairn Steam Crane being a dismal failure during most of its working life, it did come into its own during WW2. At this time, a Landing Craft Flotilla Unit was stationed at Bristol Docks’ Princes Wharf and when more than a thousand new landing craft destined for the Middle East were delivered there for adaptation, the Fairbairn Steam Crane finally came into its own – It was used extensively to unload the lorries and launch the completed crafts, making over two thousand lifts in three years.

Is it still in use?

Yes. Having been restored to operational condition, it can be seen in all its glory on certain Bank Holidays, special museum days and usually at the Harbour Festival. There’s life in this old steam-dog yet!

Lead image courtesy of Andy Dingley – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link. Other image courtesy of Rod Ward (Rodw).

Although much of our HIAB crane work is centered around the building and construction industry, we’re also able to carry out slightly more unusual tasks such as lifting and transporting boats to their new destinations. On this occasion, we were contracted to move a Mk1 Mirage 28 named ‘Serenity’ from one location to another. Our client Paul was an absolute delight to work with and has made a fantastic YouTube video documenting the move.

About Serenity and the move

The aptly named Serenity is a Mirage 28 Fin Keel Mk.1; she’s 28ft long (22ft in the water), 9ft 3 inches wide and weighs in at 3.5 tonnes and she needed to be moved from Iron Boat Yard in Faversham. Paul had owned her for 4 years and had already spent 2 years living onboard. About 2 years ago he decided to take a couple of months off work to sail her from Watchet in Somerset around Land’s End and along the South Coast to Faversham in Kent. He loved the journey and had firmly decided to keep Serenity as she’d proven herself to be ‘voyage ready’.

As Paul still wanted to carry out extensive work on his boat, he came to the decision to move her closer to him so that he could spend more time working on her without having to commute to and from Faversham each time. In order to get Serenity to her new home, Paul knew he’d need to choose a company that was capable of performing such a delicate and tricky task and that’s where HJ Logistics enter the story.

Paul already owned a cradle that he’d overhauled in order to rest Serenity on during her time on land so we picked up the cradle and transported it to Iron Boat Yard. As you can see in the video, it was necessary to find the boat’s centre of gravity so that it was well balanced for the lift. Once we were confident that she was perfectly balanced, Serenity and her cradle were lifted by our HIAB X-HiPro 418 crane onto the rear of our truck ready for her journey through Kent.

As Paul notes in the video, the route leaving the boatyard was quite tight in places but as we’re used to working in confined spaces with limited clearance on either side, this wasn’t a problem. He also correctly points out that it’s crucial to establish the exact height of any load travelling on the road network to ensure that it will pass under any bridges en route without incident.

Special thanks

Once we arrived at our destination, both Serenity and her cradle were carefully lifted off our truck and delicately placed on the ground so that Paul could begin carrying out the work on her more easily. If you’d like to keep up to date with Paul and his work, he has an entertaining and informative Youtube channel that’s updated monthly called “Just About Sailing” which documents the realisation of his dream of owning his own boat.

We’re thrilled that Paul made the video showing Serenity’s move and we hope that he gets the work done quickly so that he can spend less time dealing with epoxy resin and fibreglass, and more time watching the sun set below the horizon on the open seas!

For those that travel regularly between Kent and Essex, a significant reduction in journey time looks like it could be on the cards for 2027. That’s the proposed opening date of the Lower Thames Crossing, dubbed the biggest road project since the construction of the M25 motorway.

Engineers have begun sizing up what lies beneath the ground so that that can get an idea of what they’ll be drilling into once the mammoth project gets underway. They need to get a better geological understanding of what type of rock, soil and groundwater they’ll encounter when work on the 14 and a half mile road project begins. The Lower Thames Crossing will connect the A2 and M2 just south of Gravesend and Rochester in Kent with the M25 at North Ockenden, Essex. It’s thought that the engineers will be drilling around 700 boreholes of up to 100 metres deep at around 400 different locations in Kent and Essex.

Current Journey Time & Distance

At the moment, the distance you’d need to travel if you wanted to get from Chalk in Kent to East Tilbury in Essex would be approximately 24 miles. On a reasonably clear run, this will probably take around 40 minutes, assuming you don’t encounter much of a delay at the Dartford Crossing… which rarely happens. Assuming the project goes ahead, the journey time along the new route will be reduced to a matter of minutes through the 2.4-mile tunnel section passing under the River Thames.

Watch the video

The official video on the “Highway’s England” YouTube channel takes you on a virtual journey along the route from Kent to Essex and is a must-see if you want to get a better idea of which areas are likely to be affected by the £6billion scheme. It’s also worth mentioning that once complete, the new tunnel under the Thames will become the longest tunnel in the UK.

Opposition to the scheme

Although the finished project will certainly ease congestion at the Dartford Crossing, ending the misery suffered by many regular commuters and transport companies in both counties, there is, understandably, still much opposition to the scheme. If it comes to fruition, it’ll mean that many people will be forced to move from their homes and numerous other buildings will have to be bulldozed. There is also concern that some pristine areas of wetland, along with the wildlife that inhabits it, will feel the brunt of the project too.

Will the new crossing be free?

When the Dartford Tunnel was built, it was supposed to be funded by a “toll”, put in place to pay for the infrastructure and overall cost of the build. Once sufficient funds had been collected, it was then supposed to be free. Controversially, this didn’t happen and you still have to cough up £2.50 each way to travel by car through the tunnel or across the adjacent QE2 bridge.

You’ll also have to pay to use the new Lower Thames Crossing, although we don’t yet know what the cost will be. To avoid future confusion, rather than being called a “toll”, it will likely be called a “user charge” according to what Tim Jones, project director for the Lower Thames Crossing, told the BBC. He explicitly said that the charge would “continue”, thus eliminating the possibility that it will ever be free to use at a later date.

With wind energy becoming more widespread across the globe, the key components that are used to generate it need to be transported to their final destination somehow. For land-based wind farms, specially adapted low loader trucks are often used to carry out the task but for offshore wind farms, something a bit different is needed to get the job done.

Arrival in Dundee

Thanks to Paul Morgan’s Creative Commons video posted back in April 2018 on YouTube, we can see the first in a series of clips documenting the arrival of the Asian Hercules III arriving at the Port of Dundee where it was eventually destined to carry out the task of transporting the reported 1,200 metric tonnes, 77 metre wind turbine steel jacket foundations to their new destination, the EOWDC (European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre) in Aberdeen Bay. Previously, the huge floating crane was seen back in late 2017 arriving in Petershead, where it can be see dwarfing the adjacent lighthouse. It’s difficult to get an idea of how big this monster crane really is when it’s out at sea, so we’ll give you a brief rundown of its size.

About The Asian Hercules III

Jobs like this aren’t a problem for the mammoth Asian Hercules III sea crane. Built only recently in 2015, it has a gross tonnage of 16,805 MT and it measures an impressive 106.2m x 52m. It has 2 cargo winches that are capable of pulling 20 MT at 10 m/min and the vessel is over 130m tall, which is only 100m short of One Canada Square (Canary Wharf’s skyscraper – 230m tall).