Further harbour work at Ramsgate

All are on the back of increasing activity from nearby offshore wind farm projects. Ramsgate is the operations and maintenance base for Vattenfall’s Thanet wind farm, which became operational late in 2010, and also for the larger London Array wind farm, currently under construction in the outer Thames Estuary. Ramsgate is also a busy harbour for both commercial fishermen and, particularly during summer months, as a thriving port of call for yachts, including visitors from mainland Europe.

In the Royal Harbour, while berthing for larger vessels is available on the East Pier and the commercial quay, the majority of mooring space is provided by pontoons. With the increasing numbers and size of wind farm support vessels using Ramsgate, additional pontoons have now been provided in both the harbour itself, and the adjacent Port of Ramsgate area, home among others to a regular Ro-Ro freight service to Ostend in Belgium.

Breakwater and pontoon solutions from Falmouth UK based Marine Designs Ltd feature at a number of UK locations serving the offshore wind farm support industry, and the company has been chosen to supply two sectional concrete pontoons for the area between numbers 1 and 2 berths, adjacent to London Array’s permanent operations and maintenance base, currently under construction in the port area of the harbour. A connecting bridge and pile at the end of each pontoon, together with other associated components, including provision for re-fuelling, are included in the facility that will be capable of accommodating up to ten support craft, depending on size and mooring arrangements.

Similar work is being carried out in the Royal Harbour. Marinetek UK has supplied nine concrete breakwater pontoon units, each weighing 42 tons, to replace the existing east outer marina southern breakwater. Finger pontoons, attached to the breakwater, will provide additional berthing space, again with the increasing wind farm traffic in mind. The breakwater sections were shipped directly from Finland on board Wagenborg Shipping’s multipurpose cargo vessel Africaborg. After anchoring off the port, the ship’s cranes lowered the breakwater, in sections, into the sea. They were then towed into the harbour by the Ramsgate based tug Nore Challenger.

Ringwood, Hampshire based Commercial Marine & Piling Ltd was involved with the installation work utilising VolkerBrooks Linkflote pontoons as bases for cranes and plant equipment.

Fleetwood UK based Wyre Marine Services are no strangers to Ramsgate, having provided extensive dredging services for the harbour on previous occasions. Together with a small workboat, their grab dredger Lantic Bay has been involved in clearing large areas of the Royal Harbour marina. Dredging has also been carried out around the area where London Array’s pontoons will be located.

The water injection dredger Odin, part of the fleet of Rotterdam based Van Oord BV, also contributed to the dredging work. The minimum draught of this vessel made it ideal for operating among the extensive pontoon network of the marina.

The required Environmental Impact Assessment was funded by the European, Ports Adapting to Change (PATCH) programme, aimed at helping ports diversify into new marine activities and markets (see MJ July 2010). Other ports in the programme are Newhaven and Portsmouth in the UK, Zeebrugge in Belgium, Calais in France and Zeeland Seaports in the Netherlands.

By Peter Barker