A long time ago, the City of Papenburg in North Western Germany – located on the River Ems – decided to use Damen Dredging Equipment for maintaining the river’s depth.
The river is the city’s life line as one of the mayor German yards is located there. The yard, which builds a continuous flow of large vessels such as ocean cruise liners, research vessels and gas tankers, needs open and undisturbed access to the sea – some 60 km downstream.
The dredger “Seeteufel” is operated by the city of Papenburg since 2003 in order to maintain depths within the port area. The areas of operation include outer harbor, access to the sealock, lock chamber, inner fairways and berths.
The vessel is a pontoon-based dredger which uses Damen hydraulically operated dredge pump DOP350L fixed to a ladder. The unit is lowered by a winch to the required dredging depth, ranging from -3m to -10m. Two side wire winches are used for positioning of the suction head.
The “Seeteufel” dredges in line with a specific agreement with the water- and shipping board of Emden in a so called “fluid-mud recirculation-system”, which is tide depending and computer monitored.
By this method fluid-mud is sucked up from the 120 x 20m fluid-hole and pumped into the River Ems. When the half-yearly dredging activities of the river reach the maintained depth of 6,00m (at Mean High Water) the fluid-mud recirculation is stopped.