VIDEO: Damen DOP200 dredging Charles de Gaulle lock

The Belgian specialist diving company SUBMAR BV recently ordered a DOP200 dredge pump for one specific project: cleaning out the Charles de Gaulle lock in Dunkerque, northern France.

The lock, measuring 365 by 50 meters, involves a structure with four rolling doors of 1,700 ton each. These doors are to be opened and closed without at hitch, which requires maintenance dredging of their surroundings.

The chambers containing the doors have silted up over the years. Moreover mussels and oysters have formed shell clusters around the doors’ structures, hampering the doors’ movement.

The dredge pump removed all debris, including shell clumps, and pumps the mixture to the other side of the lock.