The game changers of the dredging industry

From DPC’s inception over 52 years ago to this the final issue,
the magazine has kept readers up to date with every aspect of dredging.
Past editor, Tony Slinn, gives a personal overview of what he sees as
the most influential legislation, technological developments, and
pioneering marine engineering projects that have changed the industry
over the last half century

Dredging is an often misunderstood
sector of the maritime world, whose enterprise and world-class
engineering abilities continues to play a major role in all our lives.
The valuable role it plays in the supply chain makes it susceptible to
changing trade patterns and shifting economic landscapes.

Over
the past 50 years, the industry has been strongly shaped by
legislation, especially in the US, and by technological advancements
that has opened the door to advanced computerisation and, quite
possibly, artificial intelligence (AI). At the same time, major industry
companies have undertaken dredging campaigns that have made a global
impact.
Despite being independent, DPC has always been viewed as
the ‘house magazine’ of the Central Dredging Association (CEDA) and
one of the first things I did as the new editor was to visit general
manager Anna Csiti at the secretariat and core company members in the
Netherlands and Belgium to find out what was expected.

I was
able to expand my contact base at events such as Europort and CEDA
Dredging Days, and during that time met then-Eastern Dredging
Association (EADA) chairman John Dobson and then-secretary captain
David Padman, who later became chairman. EADA did not have an official
magazine in my early days, and a deal was struck with DPC taking on the role.

In
the years that followed, one EADA major member, the China Dredging
Association (CHIDA) became increasingly important – hosting the World
Dredging Conference, for example. For a while, there was actually a
Chinese-language edition of DPC that I did my best to edit. So
what about the Western Dredging Association (WEDA), I thought? It did
not have an official magazine, although two US dredging publications
were closely allied to it. At this point, I learnt about the Jones Act.

Protected market

Dredgers
working in the US must comply with a variety of acts, including the
1920 Merchant Marine Act. Better known as the Jones Act and named after
Senator Wesley Jones who introduced it, the legislation regulates all
maritime activities in US waters. Essentially, ships have to be built
in the US, mostly crewed and owned by US nationals, and sail under
the US flag. Apart from emergency waivers, the Jones Act bans all
foreign dredging companies from working in the country.

It
remains one of the most controversial pieces of legislation still
extant and still affecting the dredging industry, as well as the US in
general. While attending a WEDA conference in the US, I found myself
immersed in an ongoing battle over the 8,460?m3 trailing suction hopper
dredger (TSHD) Stuyvesant. The TSHD, though built in the US
in 1982, operated under a 50–50 joint venture (JV) between New Orleans
company Bean Dredging and Stuyvesant Dredging, which was owned by
Dutch giant Royal Boskalis Westminster. Stuyvesant enjoyed
‘grandfather rights’ under the 1992 Oceans Act, allowing it to continue
dredging in the country, but competitors accused the JV of stretching
those rights … and it all wound up in the courts.

DPC
ran a story about the controversy, pointing out that US port
authorities felt that restricting the JV would reduce competition and
force ports and the federal government to pay more for harbour
dredging. The article did not go down well with US dredging contractors.
To this day I think the Jones Act should be at least heavily amended,
or repealed, and it remains very controversial in the country. I was
interested to read, in the 6 September 2019 issue of the Houston
Chronicle, an article by Chris Tomlinson – ‘Misguided patriotism is
strangling US ports and hurting the American economy’.

He pointed
out that the non-partisan US Congressional Research Service stated,
“The US privately owned dredging fleet is much older and smaller – in
terms of capacity, individual vessels, and the total fleet size –
compared to the four leading European dredging firms.” Tomlinson also
argued that “smaller and older ships, combined with a virtual monopoly,
means US firms typically charge 40% more than foreign competitors to
move the same amount of sand”.

I think the Jones Act also saps
the drive and need to invest in the technology and vessels that have
made European contractors so successful. I also found it sad that the
great nation that built the Panama Canal in the early 1900s failed to
win a single major dredging contract when it was expanded a century
later – and the canal’s own two new dredgers were built in the
Netherlands by Royal IHC. As Tomlinson summed it up, “Nothing distorts
markets like protectionism.”

“A recipe for disaster”

Staying
with controversy, and disrupting the normal two-man bridge team of
watch officer and dredgemaster, perhaps the greatest technological
advance during my editorship was the one-man-operated bridge pioneered
by Belgian dredging major DEME and Royal IHC (then simply IHC). It
sparked major rows, with one critic calling it “a recipe for disaster”.

The main arguments against the idea centred on the following:

• Dredgers mostly worked in crowded areas that demanded the watch officer’s full attention
• A one man-operated bridge placed far more dependence on automation and sensors that could become faulty
• Data overload and stress could lead the operator to make grave, possibly fatal mistakes
• It
  contravened the international requirement set out by the
  International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and
  Watchkeeping for Seafarers

However, DEME’s newbuilding
department manager, Etienne Clymans, championed for the
one-man-operated bridge system. His counter-argument was that safety,
reliability, and efficiency were put under stress by misunderstood
commands, wrongly executed actions, and many other concerns.

Discussions
with Royal IHC, classification societies, and DEME crew members then
began in earnest. Royal IHC had a commission from DEME to build Marieke and Reynaert, sister TSHDs based on the successful 5,400?m3 Pallieter,
which was built in 2004. It was decided that both would have
one-man-operated bridges. The stakes were high, with Royal IHC stating
at the time, “Even the slightest bug could ruin the overall favourable
opinion and set the idea back for decades.”

Extensive simulation and factory acceptance tests resulted in a green light, and Marieke,
built in 2006, was the first ship to have a one-man-operated bridge.
Sea trials proved it worked and DEME commissioned two more larger
TSHDs, the 11,000 m³+ Brabo and Breydel, with more
advanced one-man-operated bridge systems. I remember my first
impression on seeing the bridge layout: a dredger or the Starship
Enterprise?

Palm Jumeirah

Land reclamation
was nothing new to the dredging industry, but Palm Jumeirah in Dubai
was in a different league altogether. Its shape, with a trunk and 17
fronds, was attributed to the Emirate’s then ruler, the late Sheikh
Maktoum bin Rashid al-Maktoum. Creation of the 560-hectare (5.6?km2)
project began in 2001.

A USD12 billion project, Jumeirah was the
testbed for a controversial building technique. Belgian and Dutch mega
contractors Jan De Nul (JDN) and Van Oord convinced the developer,
Nakheel, that concrete and steel were not needed to build the
foundations; instead rock and sand would do the job despite the size
and complexity of the project. The dredged quantities were enormous,
totalling around 120 million?m3 of sand from borrow areas 6?nautical
miles (11?km) off the coast.

The crescent-shaped breakwater was
the first section built, to protect the subsequent trunk and fronds.
Geotextile membranes held the sand and were themselves held held in
place by more than 7 million tonnes of rocks, mostly from Dubai
quarries and weighing up to 6?tonnes each. On either side, 100?m wide
openings allowed access through the breakwater.

Creating
the fronds involved the dredgers using GPS to spray sand into place
with pinpoint accuracy. Vibro-compaction techniques were then used to
prepare Palm Jumeirah for its residents, the first moving in during
2007. Today, the 17 fronds are home to about 1,500 beachfront mansions,
with another 6,000 apartments on the trunk. Major hotels that are
based here include the Atlantis, Palm, and Waldorf Astoria.

Two further Palms were planned:

• Jebel Ali: while land reclamation was completed, development work stalled due to the 2008 financial crisis
• Deira: originally set to be eight times larger than Palm Jumeirah, but it was scaled back to a four-island project

The
Palms and other reclamation projects in Dubai, such as the 300-island
The World – which like Jebel Ali stalled in 2008 though work got
under way again in 2018 – all have their detractors, especially for
their environmental effects. Although nobody can deny that as dredging
and engineering projects, they are world class.

Panama Canal expansion

Worth
roughly USD5.25 billion, the Panama Canal expansion programme – also
called the ‘Third Set of Locks’ project – was cheaper than Palm
Jumeirah. But simply in terms of its global significance on shipping, as
well as on Panama itself, it is my number one. It was also a very
personal experience; I went to Panama twice during the project, and
twice I interviewed Panama Canal Authority (ACP) administrator Alberto
Alemán Zubieta. I also got to get on board a variety of dredgers.

Former
president Martín Torrijos proposed the expansion project on 24 April
2006. A national referendum backed him with a 76.8% majority on 22
October, and the project formally began in 2007. It was initially
announced that the expansion would be completed by August 2014, to
coincide with the 100th anniversary of the canal’s opening. However,
following various setbacks with construction consortiums and initial
seepage from the new locks, the expansion was not opened until 26 June
2016.

It doubled the canal’s capacity by adding two new sets of
locks, one each on the Atlantic and Pacific sides, and new channels to
those locks. Existing channels were widened and deepened. It allowed
New Panamax ships – at up to 12,000+ teu, well over double the previous
Panamax limit – to use the canal. Commercial operation began on 26
June 2016, and in its first 20 months of operation the ACP reported
that more than 3,000 New Panamax ships had used the new routes. DEME
and JDN played huge roles in the project, while Boskalis expanded the
Pacific-side of the Port of Balboa.

Suez Canal

In
my final year as editor, another project with global impact was
getting under way – the overall USD8 billion Suez Canal expansion. The
most remarkable aspect of this mega project was its speed, as President
Abdel Fattah al-Sisi wanted it completed in a year instead of the
expected 3–5 years. And it was. It was also funded almost entirely by
Egyptians themselves, taking pride in buying shares.

The expansion
added an additional lane to the 193?km?long canal, which links the
Red and Mediterranean seas and is the shortest shipping route between
Europe and Asia. It included 35?km of new waterway cut through the
Sinai Desert to flow parallel to the existing canal, plus a further
37?km where existing stretches were dredged to accommodate larger
ships.

A
JV consisting of Boskalis, JDN, Middle East-based National Marine
Dredging Co, and Van Oord won the major USD1.5 billion contract for the
new 24?m deep waterway. The JV dredged 180 million?m3, working from
both ends. A DEME and US contractor Great Lakes Dredge & Dock JV
landed a USD540?million contract to widen and deepen 25?km of the
canal, plus a 9.5?km long, 18.5?m deep access channel to the eastern
part of the Port of Said.

A huge fleet of the world’s biggest and
most advanced dredgers descended on Egypt, carrying out an intricate
logistics operation involving thousands of people and that more than 1
million?m3 of material had to be dredged every day. Throughout the
project, ships continued to sail through the Suez Canal. For me,
Boskalis dredging director Bas van Bemmelen summed it up, “Never before
has so much equipment been deployed on a dredging project; never have
the time pressures on a project been so enormous; and never has there
been a project with such high daily production volumes.”

A fitting end to my story, I think you will agree.

Source: dredgingandports