A delicate balance

TERRY HUTSON TACKLING ANY ultra-large or specialised cargo calls for careful handling, but it was all in a day’s work for Eric Houniet and his team from Excellence Forwarding. All the same he made a point of travelling to Durban to make sure that the operation went without a hitch as more than 60 tons of laminate press was discharged from the Ignazio-Messina Line vessel Jolly Rosso at Durban’s Container Terminal recently. Compounding the challenge of moving this not-particularly heavy but fragile cargo that required delicate handling was that first it had to be lifted over the fence into the MPT-West container terminal before being loaded onboard a heavylift vehicle from heavy transport specialist Natro. The Italian-manufactured press, which arrived in three large packing cases, will be assembled at the Driehoek factory of VeneerTech SA for the processing of wood veneers into sheet form that is then pressed onto a substrate such as chipboard. This provides the raw material for high quality office and domestic furniture and shopfitting applications. ‘All in a day’s work,’ said Eric Houniet (right), standing on top of the final packing crate now safely on the trailer and facing the road journey to the factory in Germiston. Making one final check next to Houniet is Carl Webb of Natro Freight.