Posted on January 4, 2022
DredgeWire exclusive, by Judith Powers
Norfolk Dredging Company (NDC) received the first segment of a 75-cubic-yard (57-cubic-meter) Cable Arm maintenance dredging bucket at its work site in Charleston, S.C. just before Christmas.
Ray Bergeron, president of Cable Arm, decorated the bucket with a large red bow for the trip from Michigan to Charleston.
Using its new bucket dredge Baltimore, Norfolk is executing a contract in the Post 45 (13.7 meter) Charleston Lower Harbor Maintenance and New Work Dredging project and expects to wrap up this coming summer. The Baltimoreis digging hard new work material using a conventional digging bucket. The dredge has hull dimensions of 200 feet by 80 feet (61 m x 24.4m), with a 250,000 pound duty cycle on the crane.
The overall project increases the depth of all shipping channels in the harbor to 52 feet (16 meters), and the entrance channel to 54 feet (16.5 meters).
NDC’s contract includes deepening the channel to 52 from the Lower Harbor up the Wando River to Wando Welch Terminal. Work also involves widening the turning basin of the Wando River from 1,400 feet (427 meters) to 1,650 feet (503 meters), allowing two 14,000-TEU-and-above ships to pass one another and turn around near the Wando Welch Terminal without restrictions.
“The new Cable Arm bucket is not expected to be utilized on this job as almost all of the remaining material is too hard to be removed with a maintenance dredging bucket,”said Michael Haverty, executive vice president of Norfolk Dredging.
The newbucket will be assembled in Charleston and moved with the Baltimore to Naval Weapons Station Earle in Colts Neck, N.J. this summer, where it will remove a million cubic yards (764,525 m3) of a 2.3 million yd3 (1,758,409m3) project.
This is the largest bucket Cable Arm has built to date.With a 75-cubic-yard (57-cubic-meter) capacity, it has an open footprint 22 feet long (7 meters) by 29.5 feet (9 meters) wide and is handled by 2.5-inch (6.35 cm) wire rope with a 250,000 pound (113.4-tonne) line pull.
Ray Bergeron places a large bow on the 75-cubic-yard (57-cubic-meter) dredging bucket for delivery to Norfolk Dredging Company at Christmas. The bucket is 29.5 feet (9 meters) wide. The black flaps cover gratings that allow easy, turbidity-free descent to the bottom. Water pressure holds them closed when the bucket ascends through the water column, keeping the dredged material trapped inside the closed bucket.
