Jumbo big sister on the slipway

The

Leiv Eiriksson

is the identical sister ship of the 46,000m³ capacity

Cristóbal Colón,

which was launched on 4 July and currently being completed at La Naval.

With the keel laying now completed, construction on the slipway of this mega dredger can proceed.

The

Leiv Eiriksson is expected to be launched next July, with delivery scheduled for early 2010.

The

shipyard La Naval currently has four orders for the Jan De Nul Group under construction, including the hoppers Cristóbal Colón and Leiv Eiriksson, the fallpipe vessel Simon Stevin and another recently ordered trailing suction hopper dredger with a capacity of 30,500m³.

The

keel laying of this vessel is expected on 1 October.

Meanwhile, the Belgian contractor has placed an order for the construction of four new splithopper barges with Tianjin Xinhe Shipbuilding Heavy Industries Co.Ltd. in Tianjin, China.

The

se four 3,700m³ splitbarges complete the list of the l’Aigle class barges of which five have been built and delivered and two are still under construction at the Tianjin Xinhe Shipyard. Delivery of the latest four is expected in 2011. This latest order takes to 27 the number of vessels Jan De Nul Group has ordered since 2003 at the same shipyard.

The

list includes two splithopper dredgers of 3,700m³, two trailing suction hopper dredgers of 3,400m³, two cutter suction dredgers, 11 splitbarges of 3,700m³ (L’Aigle Class), four splitbarges of 1,800m³ and six workboats. Nine of these vessels are already delivered and operating worldwide.