For a development in and next to the Thames Lankelma was given the order to carry out part of the site investigation through cone penetration testing by WSP environmental Ltd. the consultant for this job. On the land investigation was carried out by the track truck. Over water was a bigger challenge. Tests had to be carried out on the dry falling banks. Normally these tests would be carried out from a jack-up platform but budget restrictions made this impossible.

To carry out the tests with lightweight rigs was also impossible as we had to push through the Thames gravels with values up to 55 mPa.

Lankelma decided to design a landing craft on which the 20 tonne crawler could be driven on and off. The crawler was loaded on at the south side of the river at low tide. At high tide the pontoons were sailed over to the north side where the crawler could be driven off at 2hrs before lowtide and driven on at 2 hrs past lowtide. Tests were carried out in 3 days where depths were reached up to 20 metres.