‘All-rounder’ ups German dredging clout

The 35m long and 9.5m wide Midlumer Sandis now working with the Waterway and Shipping Authority (WSA) in Emden and is a sister of the Elsflether Sand, now in service with the WSA Bremen. The dredger was developed by the Nürnberg based engineering department of Germany’s Federal Water and Shipping Administration (WSV) as a standard vessel type, capable of serving anywhere.

Engineering spokesman Steffen Bleidissel said the advantages were clear. “These ships can operate on nearly every river and canal in the country. That makes WSV work flexible and above all economic”, he said

Markus Jänen, an official with the Emden WSA told Maritime Journal, “Our impressions so far of the ship are very positive but we need a few more months to be able to say anything more substantial about whether she has stood the test.”

Built at Denmark’s Faaborg Shipyard, Midlumer Sand, like her predecessor the 35 year old floating dredger Leda, will undertake waterway maintenance; cleaning; and bank, dyke and flood plain protection work along the Lower Ems and its tributaries between Papenburg and Emden.

Emden officials said the vessel cost about €3m, weighed a substantial 300t and had a large capacity box capable of carrying rocks of up to 100 tons. Despite this weight, the vesel draws only 90-120 cms. It has two Schottel Type SRP 320 rudder propellers of 280 hp apiece and two Sisu 74 CTIM main diesels of 200 kW each. A CPJ 22 Schottel Pumpjet of 55kW, driven by an electric motor, is mounted on the bow.

In Cuxhaven, shipyard Mützelfeldtwerft Nord and engineering firm Kundt Service have created MKS Dredging and begun the joint construction and assembly of backhoe dredgers. Yard MD Felix von Waldow told Maritime Journal the first 29m outreach dredger was being built for completion by year’s end and that further orders were hoped for.

The new concern pools the geographical Elbe advantages of Cuxhaven, Kundt’s three decades of experience in building backhoe dredgers, and Mützelfeldtwerft’s 120 years of specialised shipbuilding skills.

The yard has recently concentrated on the construction of offshore supply ships and large scale hydraulic engineering equipment. It lies on deep water in the Elbe Estuary and boasts a 135m, 7,000 ton capacity floating dock and a hall capable of building and assembling dredgers of 80m by 21m.

Kundt managing partner, Franz Josef Kundt said, “Thanks to the joint production of excavator pontoons with a strategically located shipyard, we can now benefit from significant time and cost advantages. Also, both companies will benefit from joint expertise in pontoon construction.”

By Tom Todd