Thunderbolt Global moves huge shipment from Turkey to Seattle, WA

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Thunderbolt Global Logistics finished a project last in late February for one of our top clients that had a critical shipment from Turkey that delivered to their customer in Seattle, Washington on the northwest coast. There was a total of 9 pieces of static cargo. The 3 largest had the following weight/dims:

17,209 kgs/Dims: 650 x 600 x 490 cm
2,500 kgs/Dims: 490 x 490 x 150 cm
14,750 kgs/Dims: 450 x 450 x 350 cm

The other 6 pieces were not oversize and delivered on 2 flat bed trucks. From Turkey we had Bati Shipping arranged the transport from the factory in Turkey to Zeebrugge Belgium on a short sea RO/RO vessel due to the fact there was no service option from Turkey to Seattle or Tacoma.

Once the cargo arrived in Zeebrugge the cargo had to be transferred from the arrival terminal to the Wallenius Terminal in Zeebrugge at night. Europecargo based in Antwerp took care of that portion and set up the shipment from Zeebrugge to the Port of Tacoma on Wallenius Wilhelmsen Line. Both Bati Shipping and Europecargo did a great job.

The Wallenius vessel from Zeebrugge to Tacoma was only 1 day late from what they had showed on their schedule at the time of export. Unheard of these days for most ocean carriers. We had a deadline to deliver by a certain date and the vessel being on time was critical. We had no issue with customs clearance as it was cleared prior to arrival in Tacoma. The two widest pieces had to be delivered on the weekend between 1:00 AM – 6:00 AM

Delivery of the two widest pieces was complete by 2:30 AM in the morning Saturday. The other wide piece was delivered during the day on Friday and offloaded at night once the crane was set up at 1:00 AM. The balance of the shipment was picked up and delivered the following Monday morning.

Our photos shows the two widest pieces on the trucks with Mount Rainier in the distance outside the terminal gate. They had to wait there until 1:00 AM before they could depart. The cylindrical piece was transported during the day on Friday. Since it was 450 cm wide it could move during the day.

We are grateful for the help of our trucking partners. Omega Morgan handled the large piece delivered at night (2:00 AM Saturday). United Motor Freight handled the 8 other pieces 2 were night deliveries as well. We also want to thank the people at the Port of Tacoma at the pier and management who worked very closely with us.

The Thunderbolt team of Linda Serio in our Commercial Rates Department and Cathy Murphy in our Import Operations Department teamed up to provide excellent service for our customer. It was truly a team effort.