Truck & Driver UK – September 2019

88

TEAM T&D

August 2019 Truck & Driver

Nautical but nice

Russell relishes his seven days transporting

a 34-foot-long boat from Nice to Edinburgh

Day 1

It’s 2am on a Friday and I hit

snooze a few times before I finally

get out of bed. I make a cup of

Rosie, put my card in, do my

walk-round checks and head off

down to Nice on the French

Riviera. I hate early starts and

night shifts and both are in store.

As we approach the roads into

Nice I notice a lot of low bridges,

around 3.9m to 4.0m, and

anticipate that, once loaded, it will

not be an easy departure tonight.

I arrive at the marina to

collect my load, a Pedro 34 boat.

No flat bottom, so boat has to be supported on four wooden blocks at a cost of €100

RUSSELL OLIVER

I have to wait for a free crane to

raise it out of the water and onto

my trailer but when one’s

available a problem arises

immediately. I was informed that

the boat was flat bottomed, but

this one has a fairly large keel

• so we need to improvise and,
  €100 lighter, I acquire four big
  blocks of wood on which to
  support the boat. Using carpet
  tiles and ratchets, she’s fully
  secured and ready to travel but I
  need to wait for my pilot car as
  the load is 4.4m high, 3.8m wide.
  I try to get some shut-eye
  ready for night shift number two
  because, when under Convoi
  regulations, I can only travel the
  Côte d’Azur at night.

Day 2

My pilot car has arrived and I will

be escorted all the way up to

Calais by Sven from EU Pilot

Cars. Wielding the height stick,

we jump into the van and spend

the next 45 minutes measuring

bridges. Once a route out of the

marina onto the motorway is

planned, we head back to the

lorry and proceed to inch our way

out of the minuscule marina,

through the barriers and onto the

main drag for Nice.

We head up to a gap in the

road where Sven already has the

traffic stopped, allowing me to

use all four lanes to U-turn so we

can avoid the 3.8m bridge and

creep slowly under the 4.4m

bridge onto the motorway.

We get about 30min up the

motorway and see a sign stating

all vehicles over 2.90m wide

must leave the motorway and

detour through Cannes, so Sven

seeks out the oversize French

road maps and replans the route,

which involves a 16km detour

back up to the motorway to the

next junction. Once on the

motorway, we head for a

restaurant, Relais Routier Ma

Campagne, just north of

Montelimar. It’s open all weekend

and we arrive at 2.45am, so it’s

straight in the sack for me.

Day 3

It’s Sunday and unfortunately we

cannot drive until 6am Monday,

so I keep busy by polishing and

oiling my kit. A few more wide

and long loads arrive, as this

restaurant is a popular spot with

pilot cars; the longest load is a

complete tram being transported

to Zaragoza. We all get together

for dinner and have an early

night, as we want to be on the

road by 5am to beat the traffic

round Valence.

Day 4

We’re off at 5.30am, heading

northbound around Valence, but

our height means we have to

take the National D532 to

Grenoble, which isn’t too bad

• only one impatient lorry driver
  overtakes me on a blind bend on
  the no-overtaking stretch.
  He blocks my route through
  the village as it becomes
  single-carriageway and when we
  reach Grenoble an hour later he
  is two cars in front...
  We head back towards Lyon