Ramsgate breakwater for wind farm workboats

The company is based in Gosport, Hampshire and is part of the global Marinetek Group which has built a reputation within the marine industry as a designer and manufacturer of floating breakwaters and heavy duty concrete pontoons for commercial berths, super yacht moorings and marinas.

The new facility at Ramsgate was commissioned by Thanet District Council and project managed by East Kent Engineering Partnership (EKEP) to provide a safe harbour for the maintenance craft working at the Thanet Offshore Wind Farm and the new London Array Wind Farm now under construction off the east Kent coast.

The resulting 180m long and 4.3m wide breakwater pontoon forms part of the Council’s plan to encourage increased use of the harbour. The breakwater provides protection from the waves entering the open harbour entrance and creates calm conditions for the harbour fishing fleet and the wind farm vessels.

EKEP’s project engineers were looking for quick production with the minimum amount of fuss to deliver the project on a fixed budget and in time for summer use. Marinetek UK provided a one stop solution.

Following a competitive tender process, Marinetek UK were chosen by EKEP to design and install the new breakwater pontoon and worked closely with their engineers to recycle the existing damaged breakwater units and incorporate this into the design to increase the berthing capacity while providing increased revenue for the Council.

In just five months the Marinetek team, working as design and build contractor, designed, delivered and constructed the facility, completing it on schedule and within budget.

The design necessitated the dredging of approximately 10,000 m3 at the site, with Van Oord UK using the water injection dredging technique. The Environment Agency required environmental monitoring of dredging and construction activities and this was carried out by Ecospan Environmental of Plymouth.

The new breakwater pontoons were manufactured at the Marinetek factory in Finland and delivered by ship to an anchorage four miles off Ramsgate, where the units were unloaded at sea and brought into the harbour with the assistance of local towage contractors and a safety vessel.

The construction phase was managed by Marinetek UK working in partnership with marine piling specialists Commercial Marine & Piling Ltd (CMP), based in Ringwood, Hampshire. CMP installed the pontoons and a new internal pile guide restraint system designed by Black & Veatch Consulting Engineers. The installation required driving the 24m long piles to a high standard of precision and this was successfully achieved by CMP.

Completed in May, the facility can accommodate 25 maintenance craft of up to 35 ton displacement and has been finished to a high standard with a 50 year design life.

John Davison, project engineer for EKEP said, “The new pontoon is part of our plans to realise the full potential of Ramsgate Harbour. It has been well received by the harbour users and commercial operators. As a client, we appreciated Marinetek and CMP’s skills and the professional and cooperative manner in which they approached the design and construction of our new facility. There were some high risk elements to the works and together they worked closely with other contractors to ensure the safety of site and harbour operations.”