Royal Engineers made contact with The International Maritime Group, parent company of Transmarine in Newcastle, who, in turn tasked Transmarine to carry out an on-site assessment and, if feasible, to proceed with all speed with the installation of a linkspan.

Once a way forward had been identified, the linkspan needed, for operational reasons, to be designed, constructed, towed to site, installed and commissioned in just 27 days.

The linkspan consists of a pontoon 28m by 14m with two additional flotation sponsons, each 4m by 7m, newly fabricated and permanently attached to the pontoon. A steel superstructure and roadway weighing 110 tonnes was fabricated and installed on the pontoon together with a hinged shore link bridge 17m in length, set at an angle to suit the quay configuration.

The whole floating structure is held in position by a system of tensioned rope moorings.

The unit was designed to accept the heaviest of rolling military cargoes (a main battle tank or tank recovery vehicle); the longest military cargoes (the HET transporter); and difficult cargoes such as the Chinook CH4 helicopter, which requires very small angular transitions in the roadway.

Given the speed of response required, a decision was made to buy a second hand pontoon in the Persian Gulf and to move it to Dubai, where all of the fabrication work was to be done.

The design work was carried out by Transmarine staff in Dubai in parallel with the construction works.

Fabrication started in Dubai on 4 February and squads of up to 100 men worked around the clock to meet the delivery target.

The work was completed on target on 19 February and the unit was towed from Dubai to Kuwait, about 480 miles.

Although the tow met very strong headwinds, it arrived alongside on 25 February; 15 hours later, the linkspan was fully installed and was ready to receive the first ship.