New berthing facility at Aberdeen

The new pontoon at Telford Jetty will serve the board’s fleet of workboats as well as the local RNLI rescue boat Bon Accord. This level of usage resulted in a brief that required a structure suitable for up to four vessels of 65 tonnes displacement and with a life expectancy of at least 20 years.

Due to the high levels of activity anticipated, the pontoons have been built to a high specification capable of withstanding the shocks and stresses of workboat traffic. For this project over 70m of 3m wide Walcon 21 pontoons were used, with their all-welded mild steel structure reinforced with additional bracing to ensure the necessary rigidity. GRP grating was selected as the decking material due to its non-slip properties and minimal maintenance. Walcon also built and installed a new, 21m access bridge.

The Walcon equipment replaced a previous structure but it was possible to reuse the existing wall columns. Special fendering was also fitted on the berth reserved for Bon Accord.