Nowra Cranes Puts On The Pads

Shoalhaven-based crane hire company Nowra Cranes has purchased TRT’s Crane Outrigger Pads. Director Cliff Wilson elaborates on the reasons for his purchase.

Drive for 160km on a two hour trip south of Sydney, and you’ll find yourself in the Shoalhaven City Council area. 

Home to 100 beaches and a mixture of 49 towns and villages, there are sights aplenty to see in the temperate, balmy coastal council district, ranging from a wealth of lakes, inlets and surf beaches, through to a breadth of bushwalks boasting some of Australia’s best flora and fauna. 

As of 2024, however, Shoalhaven has added a new must-see feature to its inventory: TRT’s Crane Outrigger Pads, courtesy of local crane hire company Nowra Cranes. 

“It’s just really reassuring to know we’ve got these pads,” said Director of Nowra Cranes, Cliff Wilson. “Everyone at Nowra’s got a lot of confidence when they’re using the pads because they know they’re going to stand up to the test.” 

Cliff began his career in the crane industry at the same time as Nowra Cranes: nearly 22 years ago, back in July 2002. 

Nowra Cranes is a local crane hire company that operates within the Shoalhaven area, in the South Coast region of New South Wales. Operating under Pacific National Construction as of 13 years ago, the company now owns the largest crane hire fleet in New South Wales south of Wollongong, running cranes from 20-tonne pick and carry machines through to its premier crane, the five-axle, 250-tonne capacity Grove all-terrain. 

Being a local company, Nowra Cranes prides itself on providing efficient, cost-effective lifting solutions to the Shoalhaven area that consistently prioritises the highest level of safety with each lift conducted, underscored by having not made a single claim through workers compensation policy. 

Or, as Cliff puts it, things are “always going alright” for the local business. 

“We don’t try and venture out too far,” he says. “We want to service our neighbouring region and service it well, so we focus our resources on delivering as good a possible service as we can around our  area.” 

Before servicing the cranage needs of the Shoalhaven region, however, he was a partner in a steel erection company, meaning that when it came to choosing crane outrigger pads, he was well aware of the quality he needed – and, in TRT’s hightensile, Hardox steel Crane Outrigger Pads, he found the answer he was looking for. 

“We looked at some options from America, but TRT’s Outrigger Pads provided a more cost-effective solution with higher quality steel,” he said. “On top of that, the pads were being delivered from New Zealand rather than across the North Pacific Ocean, so the wait time was significantly less too.” 

TRT’s Crane Outrigger Pads are manufactured at its head office and manufacturing facility in Hamilton, New Zealand. The Australasian manufacturer and dealer builds its pads using high tensile Hardox steel, a type of steel with high durability that is highly resistant to wear. 

Due to steel’s characteristic to wear slowly under high amounts of mechanical stress, Hardox is commonly used as a wearing plate and, according to manufacturer SSAB, is the world’s leading abrasion-resistant steel. TRT’s Crane Outrigger Pads are designed in a honeycomb structure that helps to minimise tare weight and deflection while also protecting onsite underground services from damage. 

Available as ‘off-the-shelf’ purchases that Nowra Cranes – as well as both Empire Cranes and Borger Cranes – has made full use of, TRT’s Outrigger Pads come in a wide range of sizes, making them versatile for both jobsite and different crane applications. 

Additionally, the pads are capable of spanning trenches and manhole covers without disrupting the surrounding ground’s stability. 

As reflected in its slogan, ‘made possible’, and fully explored in the August 2023 issue of Cranes and Lifting with TRT Australia’s General Manager, Neil Webb, service and support are two of the primary pillars upholding TRT’s business mantra. 

For Cliff and the team at the Shoalhavenbased Nowra Cranes, this was something they were able to witness in full themselves. 

“Everything was really easy and straightforward,” he said. “We worked with TRT Australia’s Business Development Manager, Brendan Cook, and he was very easy to deal with and made everything really simple for us.”