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Experts are trying to identify a huge metal container that has been washed up on a beach in the Western Isles.
The tank, which is 27m high, has no markings and is thought to have fallen from a ship before being washed up on the west of Benbecula.
It was discovered by a dog walker on Poll Na Crann beach - known locally as Stinky Bay - near Griminish.
Stornoway Coastguard is using two numbers on the container to try to find out where the item has come from.
The beach is known as Stinky Bay because of the fermenting seaweed found there.
Alasdair MacEachen, assistant director of environmental services at Comhairle nan Eilean Siar told BBC Scotland: "It's certainly generated a fair bit of interest with people walking on the beach or just travelling along the road, because you can actually see it from the main road along the west side of Benbecula.
"It's a big object so you can't miss it, and it's not often you see something like that on the beach.
"It would be standing almost 30m tall and really looks pretty much like a silo. I think it's a bulk storage tank of some sort, possibly for storing some liquids."
Mr MacEachen said they may decide to anchor the container to the beach to stop it from floating out to sea and becoming hazardous to ships, but in the meantime he advised onlookers to keep a safe distance.
"Although it looks as if it's empty and it's been ruptured, my advice would be not to go too close to it," he said. "It's a fairly light construction so you don't want it rolling on top of someone, and with that sort of thing you can never tell.
"My advice would be to just observe it from a distance."
It's obviosuly some kind of used space rocket stage see here for a photo of a similar one: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/89/ Centaur_rocket_stage.jpg/250px-Centaur_rocket_stage.jpg
The image looks very familiar. In addition, we then found this article: "Beer tanks roll in on river" Massive tanks piling up along the Rappahannock in King George bound for Coors beer plant in Shenandoah Valley
Date published: 11/4/2005
Quote:
ne by one, they've appeared mysteriously in a field next to theRappahannock River off State Route 3 in King George County: massive,rocket-ship-like cylinders, lined up nose to tail. The 19- by 70-foot stainless steel tanks--each weighing 78,000pounds--have nothing to do with the nation's space program, thoughpassers-by could be excused for imagining that's where they're headed.
These have a much more satisfying and down-to-earth purpose: making beer. The fermentation tanks, manufactured in Ziemann, Germany, are onthe latest leg of a long and complicated journey to the Coors BrewingCo. beer plant at Elkton in the Shenandoah Valley. "They're gigantic, pretty awesome looking," said Joyce Dussling,manager of Aggregate Industries' Mid-Atlantic plant in King George.
Aggregate Industries, which leases mineral rights from FarmerEdward Taylor, has a dock suitable for barges and is one of the fewspots upriver with water deep enough to accommodate them. Altogether 40tanks will arrive there.
The tanks were shipped from Europe to Hampton Roads and were supposed to go up the James River, and then overland to Elkton.
Then shippers turned their attention to the Rappahannock and docksat Totuskey Creek, downriver in Richmond County. A closer look at thecharts revealed an upriver landing in King George.
Two barges carrying five tanks each were unloaded last week and two more arrived this week. The latest shipment came in yesterday morning. Four more barges will be arriving in the coming weeks. It takes a crew of nine men over an hour to unload each one. "You have to make sure the barge is stable; that's the hardestpart," said Grover Nash, supervisor for Lockwood Brothers Inc., theHampton company responsible for transporting the tanks to Elkton.
Big tanks require a big trailer to move them, in this case, a96-wheel Goldhofer hydraulic flat bed trailer capable of carrying up to360 tons. The trailer was backed up a ramp to the barge and under giant pallets supporting each tank. Once secured on the trailer, the tank was ready for the slow trip to the storage area nearby. Lockwood specializes in big jobs, Nash said, some much bigger than this. "These are relatively large in size, but we've moved things much heavier," he said. For example, the company shipped a 700-ton steam generator to Dominion power's Millstone nuclear power plant in Connecticut.
It has also moved some historical heavyweights, Nash said,including the turret of the USS Monitor ironclad, and CSS Hunley, a Confederate submarine.
Donnie Stevens, an owner and tug captain of Skiff's Creek Towing Inc. in Hampton, said yesterday's voyage from Warsaw took about 10hours. The load left Wednesday night.
Tugboat captain Mark Douglas drinks a cup of coffee by one of five fermentation tanks brought in by barge on the Rappahannock to a King George landing yesterday. The tanks from Germany are bound for Coors' Shenandoah Valley plant.
The tanks are also from Germany, so enquiring using the numbers on the container could mean that it is not actually from the USA, but has fallen stray from a ship in Germany. Duane Arthur prepares to unload the 78,000-pound fermentation tanks aboard the barge. Forty tanks will be stored at Edward Taylor's farm off State Route 3.
This website also describes what they are and has more images, which makes the identification much clearer.
It makes sense to locate a brewery near a major city; transportationcosts from the manufacturing site to the customer can be reduced, but the costs of labor and taxes will be low outside the city limits.That's why Budweiser is brewed in James City County. The other major manufacturer with a brewery in Virginia is Coors. In1987 Coors built a plant near Elkton where they blend, package and distribute 7 million barrels of Coors beer to Eastern markets.Rockingham County has excellent water supply and water quality, so Coors beer in Virginia includes Shenandoah Valley - as well as Rocky Mountain - water. If you ever saw the movie Smokey and the Bandit, you remember that the thin plot line was based on a race to deliver Coorsfrom the western states. That's now an outdated scenario. Coors cansell its beer nationwide now, in part because starting in 1987 it sent tank cars with "beer concentrate" (a specially-brewed, high-alcohol version of its standard beer) from Golden, Colorado to RockinghamCounty. Adding water and packaging in Virginia reduced the shipping costs substantially to the Northest and Middle Atlantic markets.
Remind you of Whisky Galore (Scottish islanders try to plunder 50,000 cases of whisky from a stranded ship.), which incidentally was based and filmed in the Western Isles Why is it really ruptured?
The huge container washed up on a beach in the Western Isles may be a tank used in the brewing industry.
The 51ft container is similar to those used to ferment beer and is believed to have fallen from a ship.
The container was found by a dog walker on Poll Na Crann beach near Griminish - known as Stinky Bay - west Benbecula.
Stornoway Coastguard said it resembled tanks used by the American brewer Coors. The company said it was not aware of a missing container.
No-one at the German firm Ziemann, which makes the tanks, was available for comment.
Quote:
A number of people contacted the BBC news website with theories about the origins of the container.
Quote:
One reader thought the numbers "5580" written on the container could have meant it was used to hold chemicals in DTD 5580, a three-part paint aircraft scheme.
Another writer thought it could have been a rocket stage launched from South Uist, from which meteorological rockets were fired in the 1960s and 70s.
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