WATCH: Dover facelift in full swing

The new marina, which has been in the pipeline for almost 10 years, will house 250 berths, each with electric power, ranging from 10-18m with two access bridges, a new marina office, two new marina welfare blocks and fuelling facilities hosting red and white diesel and petrol.

Charter vessels will have a dedicated access bridge located by the new marina pier, with various depths.

Working alongside principal contractor Knights Brown, engineering firm Red7Marine completed the £1.7 million (€1.9 million) piling operations at the end of March, and now the entire outer wave wall is complete.

To protect the marina from wave energy reflected from the north-eastern corner of the outer harbour at high water and alleviate swell during specific adverse weather conditions, Dover Harbour Board contracted Knights Brown to construct an Outer Wave Screen within the Outer Harbour.

In July last year, Red7Marine installed workboat piles at the entrance to new marina using its Haven Seariser 4.250t deck capacity jack-up barge Haven Seariser 4.

It then carried out UXO investigation and clearance works using a CPT (cone penetration test) with magnetometer and long-reach excavator on the deck of a 100t deck capacity jack-up barge.

Haven Seariser 4 was remobilised for the main puling works and towed to site equipped with a combi-wall piling gate which was modified in Red7Marine’s port-side fabrication facility in Ipswich specifically for the project.

The piling operations consisted of a detached, piled wave screen 59 metres long made up of 59 1067mm diameter 27m long tubular piles at the entrance to the new marina within Dover Harbour.

Dover is the UK’s busiest international ferry port, receiving 11 million passengers a year.

It is also important for trade, handling £144 billion (€165 billion) in trade per year, of which 33% is goods with the EU.

It also accommodates liners from the world’s best-known cruise lines.