Thanks to Xtian 2

So here was 1 and in it I said I would answer a question in a few days and now a few weeks have passed.  The question pertained to the device mounted on the stern of vessel

Husky.  Congrats to Seth Tane, who guessed correctly.  Here’s what Xtian writes:  “It’s a plough.  In French we talk about “nivelage” [leveling], which means after dredging the bottom of the sea is like a field that has just passed a plow.  This tool cuts the bump to fill the gap.  It’s also used in the rivers where the “alluvium” or the mud stays in always same places because of the current and built like “bottom hill” there.  And it happens also in some harbour (like ferries’ harbour) as because the ferries always doing the same maneuver and raise the mud that still lay at the same place.

With the plough used at the right time, ebb tide for example, the mud is raised and leaves the harbour with tidal current.  In some places the plough is used to feed the hopper dredger –  when the dredger is too large, the plough is used to remove a “bottom hill” when they are close to the bank to give the mud at the place where the hopper dredge is working.   The plough is not only used with mud but also with sand or pebble.  Google with words : Dredge – Plough.

About Husky, the day I took this picture she was working closely with the dredge Rijndelta at the entrance of Maasvlakte harbor.   I add a picture of her below.”

More of Xtian’s photos follow, like this closeup of the captain of Smit Cheetah,

 

Fairplay 24 and 21,

Union 11 passing the Mammoet headquarters,

Smit Schelde,

SD Rebel,

Multratug 31, 

Osprey Fearless, 

Pieter (?) towing Matador 2,

and finally the recently completed Noordstroom.

 

Many thanks to Xtian for these photos of another watershed.

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.