Stevedoring Contract Called for Specially Engineered Forklift Truck

NETHERLANDS – WORLDWIDE – Q) What do you do when you need to lift a forklift truck weighing 58 tonnes with a crane that can only handle 50 tonnes safely? A) Call Hyster Big Trucks to create a bespoke solution. When this problem arose the Hyster® Special Projects Engineering Department adapted a 40 tonne lift capacity Hyster forklift to meet the challenges of what was a tough stevedoring application. Chris van der Werdt, Commercial Manager for Hyster Big Trucks explains:

“The stevedoring customer has cranes on the quayside with a maximum capacity of 50 tonnes, and needs a 40 tonne lift capacity forklift truck to operate inside the ships as they come in to be unloaded. The challenge was that the truck itself has a service weight of over 58 tonnes which is too heavy for their crane to lift from the quayside.

“Stevedoring heavy cargo can sometimes pose difficulties when it comes to efficiently loading and unloading ships. While Hyster forklift trucks offer the toughness needed in demanding port environments, there are occasionally unique challenges like this to overcome that require the addition of industry-leading custom engineering and bespoke solutions. We work with customers and partners closely to help ensure that whatever challenge they face, we have a solution for their application.”

The solution? The Hyster engineers took an H40XM-12 truck which can handle general cargo and 20 foot freight containers and therefore gives the port operator maximum flexibility from one truck. They reworked it into a two part truck which has a unique four-point locking system on the counterweight which automatically unlocks when the counterweight is lifted. This way each section of the forklift can be easily moved by the in situ cranes.

A video of the system in action can be viewed here. The Hyster Special Engineering Department is located at the Nijmegen plant in the Netherlands, the global centre for Hyster Big Trucks design, development and testing part of the Hyster-Yale group which in turn is a subsidiary of Hyster-Yale Materials Handling Incorporated.