Thunder Creek Equipment’s fuel and service trailers with DEF delivery systems have brought efficiency to operations in many industries –—agriculture, construction, oil fields, and more.
It was the events that unfolded getting one particular trailer to a gold mine operation that has become a near-legend testimony to the quality that Thunder Creek puts behind each trailer.
“Last spring, I worked with a man named Steve who runs gold mining operation in Alaska,” said Jason Harland, territory sales manager of Thunder Creek. “We built a 750 gallon standard fuel trailer for him and shipped it to the coast where it was to be loaded on a barge destined for Alaska.
“A couple of weeks after we shipped the trailer, Steve reached out asking me when it would arrive,” Harland continued. “Tracking the shipment only confirmed that the trailer had arrived at the port, but Steve was there daily and had yet to see the trailer.”
For weeks, they were unable to figure out what had become of it.
Until July.
When a fishing boat found it.
Floating at sea.
How it got there is quite the combination of events, as Steve detailed in the following message to Thunder Creek
“Unbeknownst to both of us, the trailer was dropped off at the loading yard, where it was immediately loaded onto a barge at the last minute. But when that barge arrived at the destination several weeks later, there was no trailer.
“Apparently, the barge hit a storm off southwest Alaska and lost the trailer overboard. It took a five story fall straight into the ocean and drifted for three weeks until it was found way out at sea by a fishing boat. The fishing boat towed the trailer [by rope, of course] back to land.
’It is apparently not that badly damaged, so that in itself is a testament to the strength and quality of your trailers. It’s partially crushed and I would imagine that after three weeks of floating around in the sea there would be salt water corrosion through everything.”
“We do rigorous testing on our trailers to make sure they are rugged enough to stand up in the roughest conditions,” said Loren Van Wyk, president of Thunder Creek Equipment. “Never did it cross our minds to test the integrity of our tanks by letting them float at sea for a few weeks… but it’s good to know they can.”
This story also appears on Truck and Trailer Guide.
