SOS Global Express coordinates 98-foot crew boat's voyage to Mid-East

New Orleans'A 98-foot retired crew boat from Morgan City, La., destined for a customer in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, sailed out of New Orleans last week aboard the deck of the Rickmers Jakarta.

New Bern, NC-based SOS Global Express Project Shipping coordinated the unique cargo shipment. Coastal Cargo Co. performed the move, which entailed using divers from Harvey, La.-based Epic Companies to attach two straps to the vessel, which sat docked alongside the ship. Two 320-ton onboard cranes lifted the vessel from the Mississippi River and maneuvered it onto a cradle on the deck of the Rickmers Jakarta Tuesday morning.

A customer in Dubai acquired the 60-ton aluminum-hull crew boat from a seller in Morgan City, LA. Formerly named William B. Travis, the vessel was stripped of its engines and the hull will be refurbished once it reaches its destination.

Logistics planning for heavy-lift project cargo is a very specialized niche in the transportation industry, according to Dieter Trautmann, SOS Global's project manager.

Trautmann said of the move, 'The planning for this has taken months and the coordination between Gulf Maritime Trading (Kuwait), SOS Global Express and Rickmers Line has been excellent.'

M/S Gulf Maritime General Trading & Contracting Co. W.L.L. (Kuwait) and SOS Global Express (USA) are members of the world's largest group of independent project forwarders ' the Worldwide Project Consortium.

'Project cargo is a rapidly expanding niche market within the transportation industry,' said Gary LaGrange, president and CEO of the Port of New Orleans. 'Our intermodal connectivity ' six Class-One rail lines and access to the14,500-mile inland waterway system ' makes the Port of New Orleans uniquely poised to facilitate these moves.'