Van Oord’s new water injection dredger Rhône saw the first daylight when taken out of the construction hall at Vahali Shipyards in Serbia. It was subsequently launched and is now on its way to the Kooiman Marine Group shipyard in Zwijndrecht for completion.
Once in Zwijndrecht, the vessel will meet sister vessel Rijn, which arrived in Zwijndrecht about three weeks ago. This vessel had been launched in Serbia in mid-March.
The Rijn and Rhône were ordered in July 2022 and are sister vessels of Van Oord‘s Maas and Mersey, which were also built by Kooiman Marine Group. The new vessels will have the same specifications, supplemented by optimisations. The first of the two vessels will be commissioned in the first half of 2024.
Also read: Van Oord orders another two water injection dredgers with Kooiman
Hybrid energy management
Energy management in this series of vessels was given special attention during the design phase. The water injection vessels will be equipped with a hybrid energy management system and will be able to store energy in batteries that can be used later for propulsion and other purposes.
Diesel-electric engines will reduce carbon emissions. The new water injection vessels will comply with IMO Tier III legislation for reducing harmful NOx emissions and take account of EU Stage V legislation.
Also read: Van Oord’s new LNG-powered dredgers protect the Dutch coast
Water injection dredging
Water injection dredging removes sediment “the natural way” by utilising high-pressure water jets to dislodge and transport accumulated sediment. It is an efficient and environmentally friendly way of maintaining the depth of navigation channels, ports and rivers.
The picture at the top is a still from one of the videos by Van Oord below.
