Zeesluis IJmuiden ready for official opening

In exactly two weeks the world’s largest sea lock in IJmuiden will be officially put into use by Rijkswaterstaat.

The new sea lock – being 70 metres wide, 500m long and 18m deep – was completed earlier in 2021 by the OpenIJ consortium.

Over the last couple of months, the new IJmuiden lock has been tested extensively in order to make it ready for the official opening at the beginning of this year.

“In the last period we have practiced and tested a lot with Zeesluis IJmuiden. Just a moment and we are ready to officially put the lock into the use,” Rijkswaterstaat said on their FB page.

The official opening ceremony of the new lock will take place on Wednesday, 26 January 2022, from 12.00 to 15.00 LT, during which the entire IJmuiden lock complex will be closed to navigation.

The contract for this new lock system was awarded in 2015 to the consortium comprising of BAM PPP PGGM, VolkerWessels, and DIF. Construction activities – which were carried out by a BAM Infra and VolkerWessels – kicked off in early 2016 and were completed last fall.

The consortium was supported by Van Oord and Boskalis for all the dredging and groundwork operations. After opening of the IJmuiden lock, the two companies will also be responsible for keeping the canals at the designed depth for a period of 26 years.