Constructed at a cost of £8.5m, 99% of which was met by a Department for Transport Freight Facilities Grant, the vessel was designed specifically to take Abnormal Indivisible Loads off the nation's overcrowded highways.

Terra Marique 's working life got off to spectacular start (see MJ April 2004) when it transported the last British Airways Concorde supersonic jet from West London on a three day voyage to near the National Museum of Flight in Scotland.

The timeliness of Terra Marique 's arrival was further emphasised by the European Commission's recent statement that it will not object to the Waterborne Freight Grant (WFG) aid scheme which will subsidise coastal, shortsea and inland waterway services provided they avoid lorry journeys and that they generate environmental benefits within the UK.

The EU statement said, 'The aid scheme will grant aid to any company within the EU or third countries within the European Economic Area operating new/existing coastal, shortsea or inland waterway services provided that they offer worthwhile and quantifiable UK environmental benefits and that they commit to move a specified annual freight tonnage by water. This new scheme is complementary to the existing Freight Facilities Grant scheme.'

Terra Marique will have little difficulty meeting its tonnage target. After depositing Concorde on the British Energy Quay at Torness Power Station, the vessel sailed for the Port of Leith on behalf of Alstom where it picked up three transformers weighing some 520 tonnes that had been manufactured by VA Tech.

Two of the transformers were offloaded at the Port of Goole while the remaining 270 tonne transformer and its 130 tonne trailer continued on board Terra Marique to EDF Energy's Cottam Power Station on the River Trent in Nottinghamshire.

Terra Marique was designed specifically to pass through the historic Gainsborough road bridge on the Trent. Even the railings along the top of the vessel's 67m long hold are designed for rapid removal to make passage possible.

Successfully squeezing through the central arch of the historic structure last month, Terra Marique became the largest vessel ever to navigate the Trent upstream of Gainsborough.

In so doing, a load that would have normally clogged local roads for 12 hours passed through the area without incident or disturbance by water.

MJ Information No: 19501