Tanked up and ready to go

When the truck pulls away from Tira Crown Invercargill on Monday it will be the last time workshop manager Joe Timpany will see the 350,000 litre tanks his Invercargill team built.

Each of the two tanks would be split into two pieces for transport.

It is expected to take three days for the mega tanks to make the Invercargill to Dunedin journey, as their size restricted movement until night time.

Mr Timpany said the load would not be able to take the usual State Highway 1 route as it was not possible to fit the tanks over the Balclutha Bridge and the load was too wide for the busier daytime period.

Each of the stainless steel tanks were split into two, kept in a protective wrap and covered in board for transport.

They would then have the packaging removed, internal scaffolding added and both sections would be lifted by crane on to a pre-prepared concrete pad and reassembled.

Work had started on the tanks in January and both would be completed and installed on time.

While the two 350,000-litre tanks were on the larger side of what the company produced, they were not the largest the Invercargill Tira Crown team had built — 500,000-litre tanks held the record, Mr Timpany said.