NL5

It goes without saying that the waterways here are busy and complex, as seen from this AIS grab below, showing traffic at this moment between Brussels (bottom) and Amsterdam, and between Dusseldorf and the North Sea about midway the narrowing into the English Channel to the southwest.  All the photos in today’s post–as have many here–were taken just west of Rotterdam.

Here Smit’s Union 11 heads east past the Mammoet headquarters.

Below is water tanker DWS 14 delivering “drink water” in the greater Rotterdam port.

Even more interesting is the 10-storey cylindrical building in the background, on the land’s edge in Schiedam.  It’s called De Bolder, aka the Bollard, the biggest bollard I’ve ever seen.   The building, Mammoet’s offices in Schiedam, was entirely built and furnished elsewhere in greater Rotterdam port (Zwijndrecht) and then transported into its location by water!!  Now that’s making a statement about a company’s mission.

Here in the same waterway recently, the Montrose Alpha platform gets a final fitting out before it heads out to the North Sea.  The platform was also built in Zwijndrecht and moved to this point in the delta by at least four En Avant tugs.

A 1959 training vessel Delftshaven passes by.

Across the way, new build pipe layer Sapura Rubi  is getting fitted out before joining the fleet in Brasil.

Meanwhile at the Damen Shiprepair yard in Schiedam, work is always going on, with Foresight and Patron up on the floating dry docks,  and Seven Waves and Mona Swan docked.

 

Seven Oceans –astern of Skandi Açu–has since departed for the north of Norway.  Both are pipe laying support vessels.  Here is the entire DOF fleet.  The 479′ Skandi Açu, crewed by up to 120 people and capable of laying pipe down to almost 10,000 feet,  was christened last week and celebrated by Huisman, VARD, DOF Subsea, and Technip.

My dinghy awaits.  See ya.

The first four photos come from Freek Wamandai via my friend Fred Trooster, who also took the last one.  The ones in between are by Will Van Dorp.

For more Skandi and Subsea vessels, click here.