The ground-breaking trial which involved navigating a 1,000 tonne sea going ship through the Caledonian Canal, which links the North Sea with the Irish Sea, could open up an important new freight logistics gateway for the Highlands.
KD Marine said waterborne transport, is particularly appropriate for timber – especially with Scotland’s annual timber production set to double to around 20 million tonnes a year.
And it said use of the canal will help the local tourist industry and environment by removing timber lorries from the fragile road system, while the use of newly built or temporary floating piers will give greater flexibility in the use of waterborne freight transport.
KD Marine co-director Phil Dunham said: “We have spent an enormous amount of money just to prove a point.
“We already run an inland waterway transport system from Liverpool to Manchester and asked if we could look at the Caledonian Canal.
“We bought a vessel from Poland to conduct the trial, the results of which have got everybody very excited. Now we are waiting on the side lines for someone to come forward and say let’s do it.”
KD Marine is so confident that the project will take off that it has had ship designs drawn up, but in the meantime the Calemax Enterprise, which is capable of carrying the equivalent of more than 20 lorry loads of timber at a time, is waiting for her first official cargo.
