Precision dredging clears Brunel’s basin.
Jenkins Marine has been chosen to help undertake the historic restoration of the Millbay Inner Basin at Plymouth.
Conceived and built by Brunel in the 1850’s for the Great Western Railway Company, this historic shipping dock, complete with its Granite walling, had all but been abandoned to its fate in modern times despite being a listed structure and famous local landmark.
For many decades now silt has been allowed to collect in the inner basin but simply dredging it was not possible due to the environmentally sensitive nature of the area and the need to prevent re-suspended material from drifting into the surrounding waterways. The English Cities Fund, which wants the Millbay Inner Basin to form the centrepiece of a newly regenerated Millbay, complete with a new marina, turned to Morrison Construction as main contractors. Morrisons in turn appointed Jenkins Marine as a subcontractor for the dredging works.
Jenkins is removing some 40,000m3 of material in a capital dredging project taking place in a challenging location. Due to the restrictive size of the basin the licence stipulated that a backhoe dredger must be used for the works with an RTK GPS positioning system. There is trace contamination within some of the sediments to be removed, which has been addressed by excavating in 1m deep layers, and through a mixture of disposal to the sensitive Rame Head dump ground at sea and disposal to land for dewatering and remediation.
In response to the award of this contract Jenkins Marine invested in a new Case CX350 excavator with an extended dipper arm to mount on the recently refurbished self propelled spud barge Doreen Dorward. Jenkins’ two 300m3 self propelled split hopper barges Nab and Needles are working alongside the dredger 24hrs a day in tidal shifts to complete to works this month.
The precision work requires Jenkins Marine to use state of the art computer guided dredging equipment, including a Prolec PCX-3D RTK GPS dredge system, accurate to 10mm, and the new Case CX350 long reach excavator with a 6.5m boom and 6.5m dipper arm. Jenkins Marine is continuing to invest in modern equipment and the provision of small dredging support vessels.
