The main beam of the Reid Lifting Porta-Gantry was split in two so it would be able to fit inside a helicopter and be more easily carried.
“We had a specific requirement for a gantry that was light enough to be man-handled up the lighthouse towers on arrival. It had to be designed to easily dismantle to fit in the boot of a helicopter and once inside the lighthouse, to be quickly re-assembled over the generators for major overhauls”, said Nigel Teggin, operations manager of Commissioners of Irish Lights, which maintains the 21 Irish offshore lighthouses.
The organisation used to transport steel gantries slung underneath the helicopters. But they were too heavy to transport back to mainland for inspection.
