Suppose someone asked you to ship 10 pieces of machinery, each of them 11 feet tall and weighing more than 10 tons. Could you do it? Or how about an entire manufacturing plant with all of its equipment still inside? Would you even know where to begin?

For companies that specialize in oversized shipments, known as project cargo, it's all in a day's work. Take a recent move handled by Crowley Maritime Services, for example. In January, Crowley's logistics and liner services groups transported a 235ton incinerator from Richmond, Va., to the Caribbean island of Tortola. The carrier shipped 42 individual pieces (including one that was 30 feet long and weighed 80,000 pounds) on 10 flatbed trucks and in four opentop containers. Crowley drove the vehicles right onto one of its rollon/rolloff barges and delivered them to St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. At St. Thomas, the shipment was transferred to a connecting carrier for safe delivery to Tortola.