Making the big jobs look easy

Port-watchers in Duluth-Superior have come to know that any time something big is going here, Ed Clarke is likely to be on the job.

Duluth-Superior, the transfer-point for an impressive array of oversize and heavy-lift projects over the past decade and longer, has become known worldwide for its proficiency in handling jumbo loads. Many of those loads were destined for oil-recovery projects in Canada. And Mr. Clarke often has been the guy who shepherded those loads safely home.

Ed Clarke: "I don't like surprises."

Mr. Clarke is currently serving as the logistics manager for the Opti Canada's oil-sands project in Long Lake, Alberta. It was he who arranged the transport, by ship and rail, of the heaviest single piece of equipment the Port has ever handled, a 1.5 million hydro cracker, in late 2005. That job was two years in the making.

"It's all about pre-planning," says Mr. Clarke. "At every step along the way you have to check weights, dimensions, clearances. And you have to know everything about the environment in which the equipment will be handled.

"I have to be involved in a job from cradle to grave," says Mr. Clarke. "You can't jump in on a job like that in the middle of it."

Ed Clarke's work takes him all over the world, far from his native Calgary. The hydro cracker haul, which also included other pieces of oil-recovery equipment, took him from Kobe, Japan, to Kuantan, Malaysia, to Mumbai, India, to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to Cagliari, Italy, to Rotterdam, Netherlands, to Duluth-Superior and then on to Long Lake.

On a typical oversize, heavy-lift project, Mr. Clarke will inspect the pieces where they are being manufactured. He'll inspect docks and cargo-handling equipment. He'll inspect the vessel on which the job will be shipped and the rail cars on which it will be hauled. He'll also check the rails themselves and even the rail beds; they can sink under the weight of heavy loads, causing dangerous shifts of cargo on the cars. For that reason, he likes the frozen tundra of dead winter for his heaviest cargoes.

"You have to have all your plans in place before you handle that first piece of equipment," he says. "It all has to fit. And I don't like surprises."

He'll take an especially close look at the bridges the train will go over and through. One particular railroad bridge, the one in Crookston, Minn., has confirmed his reputation as a logistician who can get out of a tight spot. He has been known to eke jobs through that bridge with as little as an inch to spare between cargo and girder. Well, actually with less than half an inch to spare.

On that job, he confirms, "I was pulling my hair out all the way through. We were inching, creeping along. At the end, I said, `whew — we made it.' "

For some of the heaviest jobs, Mr. Clarke has deployed the world's largest rail car, the famed 36-axle, German-made Schnabel car.

Once an oversize cargo is under way, he rides right along with it, traveling only by day and never faster than 15 miles per hour. When the train approaches an especially tricky spot, like the Crookston bridge, Mr. Clarke climbs down and walks the train through, staying in constant touch with the engineer by hand-held radio.

Duluth-Superior, says Mr. Clarke, is the best-equipped port he works with. Its cranes and lifts and skilled and savvy workers are "superb," he says. "It takes everybody working together. I couldn't ask for better."

Ed Clarke already has been planning his next big move for a year or two, and in another couple of years Duluth-Superior should see another oversize, heavy-lift cargo. It, too, will be bound for the oil sands of Canada. And it, too, will be a one-of-a-kind project. "It's a new job every time," says Mr. Clarke. "Every new project is a new challenge."