I took no photos to protect the guilty.
It's well known in these parts that if you are going to build on an island, with minimum services, then first, you have money and second, everything is going to cost you 30% to 50% or more.
Yesterday I was at a major marina watching a barge load-up with concrete blocks for a foundation. That portion of the loading went well. Next was the load of trusses and beams. A flat-deck truck had back-up down the ramp and parked next to a flat deck trailer. The idea was to have the truck's boom crane unload itself unto the trailer and the trailer would then be pulled unto the barge.
The truck driver was also the rigger and using a remote control for the boom crane he began to lift the load off the truck. Numerous others were running under the load. A vehicle cab was parked directly underneath the swing of the load. The entire lift was unbalanced. As a result the predictable happened and the whole load shifted in mid-air.
Fortunately it was contained in the slings. Unfortunately the load could not be released from the slings as it would just fall apart. With the load moved back to the truck deck, and with the boom crane under tension holding the load together, the truck driver drove back up the ramp to the parking lot at which point he swung the load down onto the pavement and let it slide apart, when the slings were released. It would now take hours for a fork-lift and other equipment to repackage all the material.
In the meantime, the barge, the tug, the secondary tug, the marine workers, the truck, the driver, are all charging time to the client, who was standing by helplessly watching his money go out with the tide.
I cannot stress enough the need for professional management on any project, especially one that requires extensive logistics for movement of freight. What a client saves on "looking after it himself" can be lost in multiples in half a day with standby charges, when things go wrong.
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