The Isandlwana is one of two dredging vessels that will be mobilised by TNPA Dredging Services
The Transnet National Ports Authority’s (TNPA’s) Dredging Services will soon embark on a maintenance dredging campaign at the Port of Cape Town to restore the design depths at certain berths inside Duncan Dock.
The maintenance campaign, which is set to start in early April and scheduled for completion by the end of May, is aimed at ensuring that the Port of Cape Town provides safe navigational channels and berthing facilities for shipping.
TNPA has said that it would prioritise the removal of high spots that had been detected within Duncan Dock.
Two dredging vessels, the Isandlwana and the Italeni, will be mobilised by TNPA Dredging Services for this purpose.
According to a statement on Monday, the two dredgers will complement each other in that the Isandlwana is built for high-speed sailing to the offshore disposal site, while the Italeni improves the accuracy of the final dredged depths.
Multibeam bathymetric surveys will be conducted at regular intervals throughout the campaign to ensure that all areas within Duncan Dock are restored to their original design depths, the statement said.
The Isandlwana, which has a 4 200 m³ hopper capacity, will remove about 60 000 m³ to 70 000 m³ of material from the harbour seabed. Dredged material is pumped into the hopper and can be offloaded by discharging through conical bottom valves.
The dredge material within Duncan Dock will be disposed of at the offshore disposal site – the use of which has been approved by the Department of Environmental Affairs.
TNPA’s fleet renewal programme is boosted by the dredging division’s capacity to aid the removal of about four-million cubic meters of excess material from the seabed every year at South Africa’s ports.