Santa’s Sleigh – Could Crane Mats Support It?

Santa Claus is a magical being, which is good considering his Christmas Eve trip around the world defies physics in many ways.

Santa SleighIf Santa came to your house, his sleigh would be insanely heavy, so you would want some protection. The best method would likely be crane mats, which the construction industry uses to support heavy machinery like cranes when they are in action.

So exactly how many mats would be needed to support Santa and all his gear? We’re glad you asked.

According to the math provided by Linda Harden that’s posted at daclarke.org, the numbers are staggering. The bulk of the weight comes from Santa’s payload. With approximately 378 million Christmas-celebrating children in the world, even if Santa gave each child a medium-sized LEGO set weighing 2 pounds, it would mean he is carrying 321,300 tons of presents.

That weight does not include the sleigh itself or Santa himself, however, who even after 12 months of Crossfit probably still easily tops 250 pounds.

Since Santa has some magic in his hat, let’s say he’s made his sleigh weightless for the trip. Even with that in mind, the fully loaded sleigh would still mean 321,300 tons landing on your roof.

Obviously, your roof would collapse; so let’s say Santa decides to park on the front lawn. To keep your perfectly manicured lawn in place – and avoid any harmful effects to the local environment – you plan to place crane mats to support him.

For our calculations, we’ll use an estimated capacity of a crane mat as 1.25 tons. To support the 80-ton space shuttle – which we did back in August 2014 – we used 64 mats, for example. At more than 4,000 times that weight, Santa’s sleigh is going to need a lot more approximately 257,040 crane mats, in fact. As you can, that’s not exactly practical, but it’s still fun to consider.

While we can’t help Santa out – he’s still hasn’t responded to our letters, after all – we can help your company or business with our crane mats. We’re available 24/7 to deliver mats to your job site and help provide protection and stability at your project. For more information, give us a call today at 800-426-9570 or request a quote online now.