Her Majesty the Queen named and launched the trailing suction hopper dredger WILLEM VAN ORANJE on 10 February 2010. The ship is being built for Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. at the IHC Merwede shipyard in Kinderdijk, The Netherlands.
Boskalis is celebrating its centennial in 2010, and this was the main theme of the naming ceremony. With this in mind, and in order to underline the historical significance of the year, the centennial vessel has been named after the Founder of the House of Oranje Nassau, William of Orange (Willem van Oranje).
The WILLEM VAN ORANJE was designed and is being built by IHC Merwede, in close collaboration with Boskalis. A characteristic feature of the vessel’s design is the twin hopper concept. This concept makes it possible to optimise the load of the ship in relation to the draught, particularly in relatively shallow waters. Sustainability is also a major focus of WILLEM VAN ORANJE’s design. The ballast water is cleaned before it is pumped overboard. In anticipation of increasingly stringent environmental standards, space has also been left in the funnel to install equipment for the additional cleaning of exhaust fumes.