On June 11th, 2010, twenty three months after placing the order, the trailing suction hopper dredger ‘Charles Darwin’ was launched at the shipyard Construcciones Navales del Norte in Sestao (Spain).
The godmother of the ship was Charlotte Putz-De Nul, daughter of Mrs Ghislaine De Nul, sister of Jan Pieter De Nul and Dirk De Nul, Directors of the company.
This new ship has a capacity of 30,500 m³ and with her limited draught of only 12 m and her length of 161.5 m, combined with 3 thrusters of 1,350 kW each, the vessel is very suitable to operate in shallow or confined waters. With a relatively low propulsion power of 2 x 10.800 kW, the speed in open sea will still be16 knots. This is the result of an optimized design of the hullform of the vessel and the use of specially designed propeller nozzles.This results in a low fuel consumption and lowered emissions. When the vessel sails with only 5 m under the keel, the speed will still be 14.1 knots.
Two suction pipes, equipped with submerged dredge pumps of each 3,400 kW are installed. Double-walled, electrically driven shore discharging dredge pumps with a total power of 15,000 kW will enable discharging the load at a high rate, over long distances.
Delivery is expected by the end of 2010. At the same shipyard, the TSHD ‘Leiv Eiriksson‘ was delivered. The ‘Leiv Eiriksson‘ is the sister vessel ‘Cristóbal Colón’, the largest trailing suction hopper dredger in the world.
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Source: Jan de Nul, June 12, 2010