Monster Moves - Season 5

A team of maritime engineers battle to move and sink a huge US Navy ship in the Cayman Islands to create an artificial dive reef. The team must battle winter storms and huge swells to tow the USS Kittiwake 1,600 miles from Virginia to the Caribbean. They must strip out all hazardous material from the old vessel, power clean her in a dry dock and cut holes in her hull to enable her to sink in a controlled flooding. Sink Master John MacKenzie must devise a foolproof way to ensure that the Kittiwake remains perfectly level and upright as he attempts to sink her onto a tiny site on the ocean floor surrounded by fragile coral on one side and a 1,000ft abyss on the other.

A team of aviation engineers attempt to move a historic Spitfire fighter aircraft over 6,000km from Duxford in England to Easton, Maryland USA for a private collector. The vintage aircraft can’t carry enough fuel for the team to fly it to the US. Too large to be trucked or shipped intact, this episode follows the team attempt to dismantle it for its epic trek by trucks and ship. This operation is a huge challenge, as the aircraft must be flight worthy after it has been reassembled. To squeeze the Spitfire inside a shipping container, the team must disconnect the fuselage, wings, nose and tail. They must build a support cradle for each component so they fit, snug, together like a jigsaw puzzle inside the container, and don’t bump or knock around. The journey is fraught with problems. Following a painstaking reconstruction process in Easton, will this classic aircraft survive the journey to fly again?

An intrepid team race to rescue two rare Churchill steam Locomotives, hauling them 850 miles across Turkey before shipping them back to the UK. Saved from the scrapmans blowtorch, these ancient engines were originally sent to Turkey by Winston Churchill. The locomotives are no longer able to run under their own steam, and too heavy to truck across Turkey’s mountainous roads. So the British team of steam enthusiasts have to hitch their way across Turkey on a series of freight trains. Navigating the single-track lines proves challenging and there’s the constant risk that these massive but fragile beasts could disintegrate beneath their feet. Will the team reach the docks in Turkey in time to load the lumbering locomotives onto the cargo ship for their sea journey back to Britain?

Two teams of movers race against the clock to relocate a submarine attack aircraft from Canada to America inside the world’s biggest cargo plane, and a huge snowplough locomotive up a mountain. British Pilot Harry Odone returns to Goose Bay airbase, Canada to rescue a Fairey Gannet Submarine Attack he had to abandon here five years ago when its engines failed. Harry needs to transport the vintage British Royal Navy plane 2,500km on a jumbo journey to New Richmond Airport, Wisconsin where it will be restored to working condition. This edition follows the team race against time to lift and load the aircraft into the world’s largest operating cargo aircraft on earth, the Antonov-124, to fly it to America. In Oregon, we also follow leading heavy hauler Chris Arsenault attempt to transport a 70-year old snowplough locomotive up ‘Train Mountain’ to a hillside throne.Moving the 120-ton historic hulk up the super-steep terrain and along narrow roads is a huge challenge. Will both mammoth machines survive the perilous journeys to their new homes?

A team of movers must transport a fleet of bespoke racing yachts worth £8million 6,500km from the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe to France. The huge yachts race across the rough Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean, in one of the most extreme sailing challenges in the world, the Route Du Rhum. Having crossed the finish line in one piece, some skippers decide it’s too risky to sail their yachts back. So they recruit a team of marine engineers to transport the fleet back to France. It’s a huge challenge. The move crew decides to charter a colossal 30,000 tonne cargo ship for the job. But loading the delicate 50ft trimarans and monohull yachts onto the ships deck is fraught with danger. It’s an incredibly tight squeeze to fit all the yachts on board without damaging them. Storms delay the ships journey and tempers flair when the loading runs behind schedule. Will the team get everything on board before the ship raises anchor?

A team of engineers race against the clock to move a colossal telescope, weighing over 100 tons, up 5000-metres to a mountain plateau in Chile. The telescope is part of an ambitious multi-million pound construction project in the heart of the mountainous Atacama Desert where 600 engineers and scientists are working round the clock to build the world’s biggest telescope. With parts arriving from all over the world at the 3,000 metre base camp, they must assemble the telescopes to millimetre accuracy to be able to hunt down planets that might harbor life. With no vehicle big and sophisticated enough to transport the awkward and delicate freight up 5,000 metres to the mountain plateau, the team has to design a huge, 28-wheeled transporter like no other. The journey up to the plateau through the driest desert on earth is fraught with dangers. Will the movers and machines cope with the extreme heat and lack of oxygen on their long climb up the mountain?