PICTURES: Gigantic North Sea oil towhead causes traffic chaos

A MASSIVE  North Sea oil towhead got held up yesterday on the last lap of its journey to its float out base at Wester in Caithness.

The sticking point – a street standard lamp.  The towhead had little or no difficulty negotiating some of the streets including the steep brae at Scalesburn, Wick, after being landed there by a barge.

But when it was turning from Girnigoe Street to Henrietta Street, one of the front ends of the towhead – ironically named Catcher – came up against the lamp head.

But you can’t hold back 240 tonnes of towhead steel for long and an hydraulic hoist was brought, to  elevate two workers to lamp-level.

One of them removed some of the lamp’s fittings to allow it to be swung clear giving the towhead the green light to proceed on its six-mile trip to Subsea 7’s fabrication yard.

The towhead will be hooked up to lengthy pipe lines and in due course, towed to a Premier Oil field. in the North Sea where it will be used to house communications and power connections.