Making the harbour fit for the future
A MAJOR project to deepen large parts of Lerwick harbour to a depth of 10 metres is making good progress, according to those involved in the £3.2 million contract.
Teams from global dredging and marine projects company Boskalis Westminster Ltd have been working in Lerwick harbour since June this year.
Currently on site is the vessel Magnor, the largest backhoe dredger in the world, scooping up large sections of the seabed, which are taken on board a barge to a licenced dumping site north of Bressay.
Describing the ongoing work as a “fantastic project”, Lerwick Port Authority chief executive Calum Grains said the harbour had to continue to evolve to stay competitive and attract new business.
The current dredging contract is carried out in two phases and involves work in the main part of the harbour, but also at Dales Voe, where the water depth will be dredged to 14 and 16 metres.
Central areas of the main port, such as the North Ness channel and the quayside along the new Mair’s Pier will be deepened to 10 metres.
The access to Mair’s Pier will also be widened to allow larger cruise liners to turn in this part of the harbour before berthing.
And in preparation for further expansion at the Shetland Catch, now Pelagia, area, access to this part of the harbour will also be deepened to 10 metres.
Following similar work carried out back in 2007/08 when the harbour was dredged to nine metres depth, Grains said the work would make the port’s capabilities fit for the future.
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“We continue to see larger size of vessels coming to Lerwick. We have dredged before, and as we continue evolve and larger ships come we need to keep improving our facilities and capabilities to manage that,” he said.
“This project here will allow us to take larger and deeper vessels into the port.”
Dredging the harbour to exactly 10 metres (or in fact slightly more) is high precision work supported by the latest in digital technology.
During a visit to the Magnor on Saturday it is not just the size and technological advance of the operation but in particularly the pride the crew take in their work, that becomes apparent.
The 72-metre vessel is equipped with workshops and large stores of spare equipment allowing her to operate complete autonomously.
Deputy project manager for Boskalis, Tatu Luuri, said the Magnor’s job was to remove hard rock from the seabed after initially softer material had been removed by a sister vessel called Odi.
“The is the world’s largest backhoe dredger. We have a 20 cubic metre bucket on, which we use to dredge this area as it is hard material,” he said.
The overall project is expected to be completed by the end of the year by which time 450,000 cubic metres of material will have been removed.
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