| When Great Britain
recovered the Falkland Islands in June 1982, it was necessary to create a complete port,
accommodation and storage facility for a 4000 strong troop garrison in an environment
where no supporting infrastructure existed. The most serious problems facing that
Garrison were the complete absence of suitable accommodation, the lack of a working port
to handle the mass of equipment and logistic stocks needed to establish a tri-service
operational capability and the non-existence of storage, both for day-to-day requirements
and for longer term and contingency needs. As no assets were available locally,
everything had to be provided from Great Britain, over eight thousand miles away.
The solution to these three related problems was found in the techniques, capabilities and equipment developed in the stringent conditions of Britain's offshore oil industry. Under these circumstances construction on-site was impossible. Therefore, it was necessary for British industry to develop the ability to fabricate rigs, platforms and supporting facilities in a benign environment, move the massive loads to the operational area offshore and install them in minimum time. The same approach was required in the Falkland's Garrison. Three 'coasters' - i.e. very large oil rig support barge bases incorporating prefabricated accommodation and living units for over 800 men each, were acquired, moved to the Falklands and placed in Port Stanley where they have, to date, provided walk-on/walk-off accommodation and support for more than 15,000 soldiers and airmen serving in the Falklands. The port and storage requirements of the British Expeditionary Force were the same as those for any conventional working port:
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| Although these are the normal capabilities of a conventional port, the requirements of the Falklands community were immediate and local facilities did not support the construction of a conventional port. Difficult and unusual circumstances meant a conventional build could not resolve this desperate and immediate ship-to-shore problem in the Falklands. The existing wooden jetty at Port Stanley was far too small to work cargo, too weak to support either a crane or a large load-carrying vehicle and there was insufficient depth of water to allow any but the shallowest draft ships to come alongside. The inevitable consequence was a continuous backlog of ships, damage and loss of urgently needed stores because of multiple handling, excessive demands on the British Army's limited resources of specialised manpower and equipment for port operation, increased cost because of the delay in unloading shipping and a need to conduct the whole operation on a continuing basis of crisis management. As the jetty and storage associated with the new airfield at Mount Pleasant was expected to be available only in three to four years time, an intermediate system was required to be operational as soon as possible, and to effectively pay for itself within three years of operation. The defined requirement was for an installation costing less than twenty-five million pounds to be operational within five months of contract award. The required characteristics were nine hundred feet of alongside berthing at a minimum depth of twenty feet, one and three quarter million cubic feet of storage space incorporating power for up to thirty standard refrigerated containers, a minimum of twenty thousand square feet of quayside working area, the ability to operate load carrying helicopters without a dedicated helipad, the ability to accept roll-on/roll-off shipping and the provision of offices both for the overall port control of Port Stanley harbour and the installation itself. Accommodation was also required for key personnel and a dining facility was needed for the labour force of two hundred to be employed in the completed installation. Responding to a United Kingdom Ministry of Defence requirement for an intermediate port and storage system, ITM (Offshore) Ltd., a leader in the fabrication of offshore facilities, provided the innovative answer, known as FLEXIPORT, which was subject to a licence agreement with Mr Kjell Eriksen, the inventor. Thirty-one companies responded to the U.K. Ministry of Defence invitation to submit proposals, and a short list of six companies were invited to enter best and final negotiations, having been afforded the opportunity of a three day visit to the site at the worst period of the 1983 Falklands winter. Evaluation of these best and final proposals resulted in the contract being awarded to ITM (Offshore) Ltd., on the 2nd October 1983. ITM proposed to meet the Falklands requirement by utilising the licensed Flexiport system. This entailed using six standard offshore ocean-going oil rig support barges, each of 10,000 tons dead-weight tonnage, ballastable to any depth between 5 and 15 feet and with an unencumbered open deck area 300 x 90 feet; about the same size as a full size football pitch. Prefabricated steel clad warehousing would be erected on four of the barges providing over 1.75 million cubic feet of storage space. The barges would be linked together and moored by dolphins, the specific design for the extreme Falklands climatic conditions having been proven in the deep test tank of Newcastle University. A smaller seventh barge would provide both the roll-on/roll-off pontoon and the head of the 600 foot causeway link to the road system ashore. The 2-way causeway would be fabricated in five sections, water ballasted to the prepared sea-bed and able to accept vehicle loads of up to 30 tons. Office accommodation and support facilities would be contained in prefabricated units erected as a second storey on one of the warehouse barges, and the whole installation would be self-sufficient for power and water, with considerable redundant capacity for both these essential requirements. All the preparation, construction and prefabrication work was undertaken in a British shipyard between October 1983 and February 1984 and moved to the Falklands in a phased programme of three separate heavy equipment lift ship loads. The arrival of each load was timed to coincide with on-site preparation carried out by a workforce flown from the U.K. and supported by a giant crane barge which embarked at Las Palmas on the first heavy lift shipload. The first load contained six mooring dolphins and the two quayside barges, which arrived at Port Stanley on 27 December 1983 after a 23 day passage from Belfast Lough. These were installed by mid-January and brought a working quayside into operation at once. The second heavy lift shipload containing the causeway sections, the roll-on/roll-off pontoon and one of the storage barges, arrived in early March to match the completion of the preparation of the sea-bed to accept the causeway. The final three barges, which arrived two weeks later on the last heavy lift shipload, were installed within two days of arrival, and the whole complex became operational well within the five months time limit laid down by the Ministry of Defence.
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| The first ship to be handled alongside, the MV Leicesterbrook, offloaded a cargo of 500 tons of general stores and 60 standard ISO containers and was turned around in 30 hours. On a previous voyage with a similar cargo worked by harbour craft, the same operation had required 21 days. The Flexiport paid for itself within 3 years and remains in operation today. The Flexiport concept, now proven in the extreme conditions of the Falklands, has attracted a great deal of interest worldwide in numerous applications - both military and civil. Its military use has been discussed in detail with representatives of the United States Department of Defence, including representatives of the Military Traffic Management Command. Had Flexiport been available during the Falkland war, it would have been brought into operation at San Carlos as soon as the beachhead had been secured. There, under air defence protection, its availability would have greatly reduced the risk to logistic shipping which without Flexiport had to be held in or near Falkland sound to await unloading. |
