Micor calls upon The Beast of Demolition Island.
Planning is everything in the demolition business; but when the demolition work is taking place – effectively – at sea, planning takes on a whole new importance.
This was the task facing Michael Corridan at Micor Demolition who was awarded the contract to demolish the Upper Harbour Ammunitioning Facility (UHAF) in the middle of the Solent off the coast of Gosport, Hampshire. Not only was he required to plan the demolition in the normal manner, he also had to take into account unusual factors such as tide times, ship movements, and ensuring that the men and machines working from the “demolition island” were fueled.
This in itself was no mean feat. One of the machines in question was The Beast, the Kocurek-modified Hitachi EX1200 excavator owned and operated by Heavy Decom International (HDI). Weighing in at 200 tonnes, The Beast was readily consuming some 20,000 litres of fuel each week throughout the duration of the contract, all of which had to be delivered by tug from nearby Gosport.
Despite its thirst, the machine made light of work of the demolition of a pair of naval grade, reinforced concrete bollards and the ship-loading cranes that stood on top of them. Equipped with an 11 tonne Mantovanibenne CR100 concrete crusher, The Beast quickly took down the bollards to a depth of one metre below the sea bed. Guided by a camera mounted on a second excavator, The Beast then removed all arisings from the sea bed, loading out into a barge that transported the debris back to port for further processing.
For a clearer indication of the challenges facing the joint Micor and HDI team, please check out the epic and exclusive new movie from the DemolitionNews video crew below:
