It’s no small feat getting 31 giraffes into a busy city within six hours.
Cambridge Innovation Park-based Pentaco was tasked by the charity Break with the tall order of moving the sculptures for Cambridge Standing Tall into place last Wednesday evening (20 March), ready for the launch of the trail the next day.
Louise Reeve, from the company, said Pentaco brought experience from the previous Cows about Cambridge trail – and has previously worked on moving T-Rex and mammoth sculptures into place in Norwich.
Pentaco teamed up with haulage company Bimson, which provided three HIABs – lorries with mounted cranes – to help get the giraffes into place.
“We then also had a telehandler, three Pentaco support vehicles and about 20 Pentaco volunteers on the lead-up to install concrete plinths that we were recycling from Cows about Cambridge, adding chain links and plaques and bolting down the sculptures,” said Louise.
“On the install evening, the sculptures on their plinths were forklifted onto their HIAB, in order of location - four giraffes to a HIAB.
“There were two or three trips backwards and forwards to reload throughout the night from our offices at Cambridge Innovation Park.”
Tackling the task in a busy city proved “very challenging”, but Louise said: “The Break team had the timings down to a tee. We started at 4pm and we were finished by 10pm as planned.
“The joy is watching people see a journey of giraffes on a HIAB on their way into Cambridge and doing double takes as they go by – outside one drop-off in central Cambridge we did have three fire engines to attend to, but it all went smoothly.”
See our complete guide to Cambridge Standing Tall and find out how to enjoy the 10-week trail.
