Business and Finance

Damen Completes Hopper Dredge

In May the hopper dredge Jean Ango was delivered to its owner Dragages-Ports for maintaining the French river Seine. The 1500-cubic-meter (about 1965-cubic-yard) dredge was designed and built in Spain by Astilleros de Murueta using Damen dredging equipment.

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The customized discharge pipe makes a firm connection around the coupling to fully connect the pipe.

The Jean Ango is 82.1 meters (about 270 feet) long has a moulded breath of 15.4 meters (about 50.5 feet) a deadweight of 3392 tons loaded speed of 11.5 knots and living quarters for 14 crew members.

The Jean Ango is designed for dredging more than eight miles from shore and will maintain the river Seine between Rouen and Le Havre.

The dredge is fitted with a 600 mm (23.6 inch) trailing pipe which can dredge to a maximum depth of 26 meters (about 85 feet). Two identical Damen dredge pumps type BP6055MD either fill the hopper or pump ashore using the bow coupling or the customized side coupling. The discharge pipe can be guided outboard toward an existing wall station which makes a firm connection around the coupling to fully connect the pipe. The booster pump of the wall station works in series with the dredge pump and discharges ashore over a five-kilometer (about three-mile) pipeline. The dredge also has conical bottom valves for emptying the hopper. The dredge also includes a degassing system as a high percentage of gas has been shown to be trapped in the layers of silt along the river. The system removes the gas from the sediment mixture by creating a vacuum in the dredge pump. Damen said this also makes the pump work more efficiently.

S.A. Astilleros de Murueta did all design for the vessel including basic engineering and the naval architecture. The vessel was built at the Gernika-yard. Engineering the vessel took around 10 months and the yearlong construction of the Jean Ango was done during 2012. Early this year the vessel underwent sea trials.

The French minister Valerie Fourneyron a member of the National Assembly of France representing the Seine-Maritime department baptized the Jean Ango named after a famous French explorer.