Molesworth mission accomplished!

Definietly the job of the Month!

The Department of Conservation New Zealand reached out to Safe Hire Blenheim with a rather unusual request... they wanted a machine that could ford 600mm of water and climb a steep exit bank out of a river - and in the remote Molesworth Station to boot! 

After careful consideration we chose the Haulotte HA16m all terrain knuckle boom as the most suitable for the job and set about making a plan to complete the job at hand. 

The job itself was a bridge inspection on the historic Pig Trough Suspension bridge one of three built by the New Zealand Electricity Department in the early 1980s to provide access to towers where the high‑voltage direct current line crossed the river away from the road. The other two bridges have been washed away in floods making this the remaining one of this type in the area. The unusual name comes from the wild pigs often seen around a wet soak near the head of the gully named Pig Trough Gully.

DOC were hoping to reopen the bridge again after an engineers inspection and needed our machine to inspect the top beams and main cables, they requested our services to supply a suitable machine and also operate the machine onsite for the inspection.

The schedule on the day was tight and our driver left Blenheim at 330am in order to rendezvous in Hamner Springs with DOC and then make the drive over Jacks Pass and into the Molesworth Station. The engineer flew in via Helicopter at 11am and the team had the machine in position 30mins prior involving making a challenging water crossing and climbing the steep exit from the river which took several attempts. 

The inspection went well, lasting around 2hrs and the engineer left via helicopter leaving us to get the machine back across the river and onto the truck and make the trip back over Jacks Pass and out of the Molesworth station.

Both the engineer and DOC commented on how well the job went including the timing of meeting the helicopter and getting the knuckle boom across the river.   

Safe Hire offer solutions wherever we can and are pleased to tackle the unusual! We like to find a way no matter how unconventional the challenge may be!