Australia: Ex-HMAS Syney’s last trip on SPMTs made in Germany by TII Group

• AMC docks the EX-HMAS Sydney (4.100t displacement) with the help of Self-Propelled Modular Transporters (SPMT) of the TII Group

• Ground clearances as low as 200mm were mastered due to precise electronic steering of the vehicles

On 12th June 2017, Ex-HMAS Sydney was docked at the Western Australian Government owned Australian Marine Complex Common User Facility (AMCCUF) in Henderson, Western Australia.  AMC Management, the Facility Manager and Floating Dock Operator, relied on SCHEUERLE Self-Propelled Modular Transporters (SPMT) for this difficult task. After travelling 959,627 Nautical Miles during 32 years, the Ex-HMAS Sydney with a displacement of 4.100 tons was ready to be replaced in the context of a general fleet makeover by the Australian government .This was no standard docking procedure: The disposal process required the ship to be as close to the ground as possible so the ship was transferred from the floating dock to the hardstand with only 200mm clearance from the bottom of the rudder to the ground.

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The sophisticated steering technology of the SCHEUERLE SPMT allows precision-positioning of the heaviest of loads. The individual module transporters can be coupled in any combination, either mechanically or in open compounds. The steering technology guarantees the synchronized control of all module transporters integrated in the coupling mode. Electronic all-wheel steering makes the module transporters extremely maneuverable. This makes them suitable to transport almost any load and provides precision-positioning of ± 2 mm.

Ex-HMAS Sydney was decommissioned from the Royal Australian Navy on 7th November 2015 and had been laid-up in Sydney until 18th May 2017 when she departed for the tow to Henderson where she arrived on 8th June 2017.

SPMTs from the TII Group

In the second half of the 20th century, a trend began to change the entire transport industry forever. With the first self-propelled transport modules being used in the shipbuilding sector and the SPMT (Self-Propelled Modular Transporter) developed by SCHEUERLE in the late 1970s and early 1980s, payload possibilities suddenly increased and are now in principle without limitations. Seventy per cent of all transports over 3,000 tonnes and ninety per cent of all shipments of over 5,000 tonnes are now carried out on modular, self-propelled vehicles of the TII Group. As a result, modular production has also entered the oil and gas industry, shipbuilding and many other sectors. Weights of 17,200 tonnes – a world record - have already been transported with SPMTs from the TII Group.