A specialist heavy lift barge operator, located in the heart of Staffordshire, has been named Water Business of the Year.
The accolade was presented to Eccleshall-based Robert Wynn and Sons at the Logistics UK Logistics Awards held in London.
The recognition tops off a ground-breaking year for the shipowners, which specialises in moving the largest and heaviest abnormal and indivisible loads around the UK coast – as well as to and from the continent.
In May, as reported in Daily Focus, Robert Wynn and Sons made history by becoming the first shipping company in more than 60 years to transport cargo via the River Forth to Alloa in Scotland.
After 10 months of planning, five voyages were made from Rosyth to Alloa, moving a combined 941 tonnes of cargo.
This summer, the company’s Terra Marique vessel carried out a beach landing operation on Black Rock Sands in North Wales to deliver a 155 tonne electricity transformer it loaded in Rotterdam to a substation at Trawsfynydd.
The versatile Terra Marique barge was back in action in France, where it carried out a tricky manoeuvre to deliver two transformers loaded at the Port of Lorient to Le Palais on the island of Belle Ile-En-Mer, negotiating the narrow entranceway to the port in front of hundreds of onlookers.
Company Director Tim West said: ““It has been a busy year for us, with a number of very challenging jobs.
“Our team was so pleased that our work has been recognised by Logistics UK at their logistics awards. While we may be over 50 miles from the sea, we are proud to be a Eccleshall and Staffordshire based shipping business”.
