PHOTO: Hopper dredger Diogo Cão in Singapore

Dredging is more than dredging, it’s also about sailing the seven seas and discovering the world seen from the water, Jan De Nul Group said in their recent post.

Having this in mind, the company has just released a beautiful photo of their Ultra-Low Emission vessel Diogo Cão in Singapore. What a view!

The 3,500m³ hopper dredger Diogo Cão was built in 2018 at the Keppel Nantong shipyard in China, a subsidiary of Keppel Offshore & Marine.

The design of the Diogo Cão is based on the successfully operating 3,400m³ TSHD Alvar Nuñez Cabeça de Vaca and Sebastiano Caboto, built in 2011. The vessels combine a shallow draught with high manoeuvrability, making them very suitable for working in confined areas.

The Diogo Cão is in diesel-electric execution: all major drives (thrusters, dredge pump, jet pumps…) are electrically driven, and controlled by means of frequency converters. In this way each system can operate at its optimal speed and power.

Power is generated by means of three diesel generator sets. A control system automatically starts and stops the sets depending on the power requirement. Asymmetric load sharing results in optimal load distribution over the diesel generator sets.

This green vessel is also equipped with an exhaust gas treatment system filtering out and virtually eliminating many pollutants from the exhaust gases.