Kaiserschleuse Key to Bremerhaven Vehicle Future
Work proper has begun on what is being described as one of Europe’ s biggest current port engineering projects, the € 233m rebuilding and expansion of Bremerhaven’ s Kaiserschleuse sea lock to provide access for giant modern vehicle carriers.
Planning and preparatory work for the project has been underway for some months. Now the first piles have been driven at the same time as the port, Germany’s second biggest universal facility, reported a 13.5% increase in vehicle handling to 1.5m in the first ten months of 2007and predicted a record of more than two million vehicles this year. When Kaiserschleuse rebuilding is completed in Summer 2010, that figure is likely to rise again and substantially.
Most of the vehicles currently arrive on over 1,000 ships a year to reach berths in the already expanded inner Osthafen car handling centre via the bigger Nordschleuse sea lock. This is because the Kaiserschleuse, currently 223m long and with a passable width of 28m, can only handle ships up to 185m long while the biggest modern carriers are now over 240m long.
Rebuilding of the 110 year old lock, which was completed in 1897, will create a new 305m long Kaiserschleuse lock chamber with a passable width of 55m and a 4m fender. The water depth will be 13m.
Works involve the installation of 39,500 tons of steel sheet piling and piles as well as an estimated 45,000 m3 of concrete. Constructors will also need to excavate more than 450,000 m3 of earth and remove a number of adjacent buildings. Dykes will be raised and strengthened against flooding. The lock will be closed to shipping for up to 28 months from January next year.
Construction follows an EU wide tender process and is in the hands of Bremenports along with WTM Engineers Hamburg, ILAG Inros Lackner in Bremen and MMT Maierform Maritime Technology in Bremerhaven.
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