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antic ocebn. Upgrading the operation hat meant purchasing a £35,000 Boalloy trailer with Wilcox moving floor for loading straight on to his customer's conveyor belt.
how moot people' u
and they would ban, a rough idea where islands such as Crete and
• Mallorca are but mention Benbecula and you' are likely to be met bysome energetic head scratching.
Haulier Jim MacDonald gazes across the treeless shoreline from which he h'brvests 4,000 tonnes of seaweed a year and acknowledges the island's stark and uncluttered beauty: "Even the woodpeckers up here take packed lunches."
Benbecula i he be found in Scotland's Outer Hebrides group of islands, linked by a causeway to the islands of North and South Uist, a half-hour flight south of the Isle of Lewis.
acDonald, in haulage for 24 years tr*dni his mainland base at Fort William, has been hauling to Benbecula since .., 1979—beginning at a time wherundeorCaledonian MocBrayne was providing an island service. Pie became taken with the Idea of island haulage after a number of Hebridean holidays. "Hauling out here is hard work but the rates are slightly better," he says.
He is also partner in another island business, Scotia Timber, which offers building and timber supplies from depots in Benbecula, Barra (the island where aircraft land on the beachl and Fort William.
His loads to Benbecula include fish food for Hebridean salmon fairs from
goedon or GlasgsNi.. Ilini1U the seaweed,. or asco to give thit.particular plant its proper name, provides half of his 300,000 -turnover. For this reason he s invested in Iwo trailers with` Moving -IJoors to shuffle the loads straight on to conveyor belts at his American client Kelco's seaweed processing factory in Girvan, Ayrshire. There the weed is turned into food preservatives and 'pharmac%*cal additives.
• The keiinit, a Wilcox, was bought in 19Vh. -A March this year MacDonald upgraded the operation by purchasing a 9,35,000,--Boalloy 13.6m trailer built on a Crane Fruehauf Chassis with a Wilcox moving floor. The moving floor accounts ,for nearly half the trailer's cost, according, to Malloy.
Hydraulically .pawered it consists of a series of alloy planks which move backwards and forwards in turn—two standing still for every one pushing the load forward and out of the bailer.
So what are the unit's advantages? "it enables the weed to be tippedin six minutes without .being handled," explains MacDonald. it also means he does not have, to bring a tipper on to the island which'would lack the versatility to carry palletised general loads on the outward trip.
The high cost of the seven-and-a-half hour ferry journey from Lachboisdale in South Uist to Oban on the mainland-£640 round trip for an artic—means it is vital to run with full loads. Once on the mainland Mocdonald^s vehicles have another five hours before reaching Kelea's factory, where up to 400 people process this valuable fruit of the sea. With an overnight stop and time spent picking up a fresh load, the exercise takes three drivingdays.
..Aow does MacDonald get the weed into lOs trailer in the first place? The 'procees is begun by. sell-employed
cutters with small boats who go out to sea and tow the Weed back to shore. "There's some triclq navigating involved through the channels but they've beg,n at it all their.; lives," says MacDonaldi,"The' "two that tut our weed are both itptheir fifties now.'!"
The weed is, a natural right to harvest. When the weed is on the shoreline, MacDonald sends a Hiab crane on to the shingle beach, parks the artic unit on the road above and loads the trailer through its roof where a man on a catwalk is able to control the distribution of the load. Tie Western Isles council has recently agreed to pay for hard standing for MacDonald's loading and turning areas which in their present rough and ready form do the vehicles no favours. MacDonald attributes the council's goodwill gesture to the threat that it is in danger of losing the island's RAF base to government cuts, with the resultant impact on the local economy. "It's made them take° bit more notice of pZi:wirste like us," he says. The crop is harvested all year round although the work can be hampered by severe Weather in the winter months, particularly for the cutters. Getting off the island can be a problem. "From January to March we often get stormbound," says MacDonald, "You just have to wait until the ferries are able to, start running again, usually within a couple of days.' He looks out at the calm inlets, pools of water sparkling in the late afternoon sun, bunches of seaweed festooned on the rocks: "In the winter you could not stand here like this, you would be blown over." MacDonald is developing the business by building a seaweed processing factory on the island—there had been factories on North and South Uist but the last closed in 1987. The factory will wash the -"weed and mill it down to very fine particles. This is the form in which other suppliers in Donegal, Iceland, Tasmania and Chile deliver their product to Kelco. MacDonald felt it necessary to step into line to retain the contract. MacDonald's partner in the factory when it opens late this year is Duncan MacKinnon, currently contracted to run the Hiab crane side of the loading operation. MacKinnon is a former manager of one of the closed factories: "Mr Seaweed of the Western Isles," chuckles MacDonald affectionately, "He's been at it for more than 40 years." • by Patric Cunnane