42 | Sector Focus: Ports & Shipping
SUMMARY
■JST uses the floating pier system ■JST’s piers are designed to minimise environmental impact
■The system is manufactured in Scotland
■The system can load 2,000 tons of logs in 12-15 hours
HAVE PORT, WILL TRAVEL
JST provides the link for timber from forest sites with challenging access to low carbon coastal shipping. Mike Jeffree reports
As a general rule of thumb, if you want to load logs on to a ship, you put them on a truck and take them to the nearest port. JST challenges that orthodoxy. As a short article in the last TTJ described, it effectively brings the port to you (TTJ July/August 2024). That, says the company, has logistical, cost and environmental benefits.
JST uses a technology employed by the military where there is a need to quickly and efficiently move heavy equipment over stretches of water – the floating pier system. Attached to a heavy pontoon, the linkspan
bridge can be moored at any suitable location to create an instant landing stage from which sea faring vessels can be moored. “JST re-purposed this technology for the Scottish timber sector to facilitate movement of timber by sea from remote logging sites,” said JST commercial director Ross Walker. “The roads in and out of these sites, which are typically used by farm equipment and tourists, are not suitable for heavy vehicles. There is also an environmental and social benefit of removing trucks from the road and replacing them with bulk shipping.”
The system, he added, aligns with, and in part enables TimberLINK, the Scottish government-funded public service contract to facilitate short-sea costal shipping of roundwood from Argyll to Ayrshire. Since its inception in 2000, TimberLINK has calculated savings of over 21 million lorry miles and over 42,0000 tonnes of CO2
.
“Although based on existing equipment, the JST system, which is fabricated in Scotland, is unique and heavily modified to serve the timber sector,” said Mr Walker. “The patented technology enables the bridge deck to move through 90 degrees, so it is parallel with the pier structure. This allows the bridge to fold onto the pier during transport and installation. It can be deployed in a matter of days, allowing for work sites to be established and operational in a very short period.” Once manoeuvred into place by a tugboat, the floating pier is fixed to the seabed with telescopic ‘spud legs’ that prevent it drifting from the site, while accommodating the rise and fall of the tide. Additional anchorage is also used.
Once the floating pier site is established, JST deploys low-ground-pressure, in-forest, haulage vehicles to move timber from the harvesting site to the floating pier storage area to build stock ahead of the arrival of bulk vessels. On ‘ship days’ a landside material handler is used to load two flatbed shunt vehicles which carry timber down the bridge onto the floating jetty. “Another specially designed material
Above: JST’s floating pier on the Morvern Peninsula TTJ | September/October 2024 |
www.ttjonline.com
handler, based on the pier, then loads logs from the shunt wagon into the vessel alongside,” said Mr Walker. “Typically, a gang of four people operate the pier and the system can load approximately 2,000 tons
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