To ensure compliance with Maritime New Zealand rules, the Pusher Barge was required to be taken out of the lake to enable maintenance work and marine surveys to be completed. There is no slipway or any other way to retrieve an 80-tonne Pusher Barge from the lake. Minaret Station manager, Jonathan Wallis, came up with the idea to use large dump truck wheels and structural steel cradle trailer to drive the Pusher Barge onto in the lake and then pull the trailer out with a large fully loaded Articulated Dump Truck. BMC took this idea, assembled all the information on the existing Pusher Barge, and designed and detailed a trailer cradle to handle the heavy Pusher Barge payload.
The success of this project for the team speaks for itself when on a calm day; the Pusher Barge was driven on the trailer in the lake and pulled out onto the beach like it was a well-practiced manoeuvre.