Vol. 1,
issue #3, 9 June 1999
Sophisticated trailer Lange Wapper christened
The Lange Wapper, a sophisticated and technically advanced 13,700m3 trailing suction hopper dredger for Dredging International (part of the DEME Group) was formally christened on 28 May at Krankeloon near Zwijndrecht on the left bank of the river Scheldtnear Antwerp.
Mrs Elianthe Baldewijns, the spouse of the Flemish Minister for Education and Civil Service, christened the vessel.
Lange Wapper was built by the Merwede shipyard (part of the IHC Group) in the Netherlands at a cost of some 2.4 billion BEF.
At the end of 1999, yet another jumbo-trailer, the Nile River, with a hopper capacity of 17,000m3 is also due to be delivered to the Group. A fallpipe vessel, Seahorse, is also under construction for the company. The Seahorse will be equipped for accurate stone dumping at depths of up to 2000 m.
The Lange Wapper is 129.8m in length with a breadth of 26.8m. She has a large loading capacity of some 19,000 tonnes and a shallow draft that
DEME believes will enable her to compete successfully with vessels in the 8,000-13,000m3 range.
The Lange Wapper has a fully loaded draught of just 8.0m, and total installed power of 13,400kW. When fully loaded she sails at a maximum speed of 15kt. She is equipped with a highly innovative 6m wide draghead, and a very powerful waterjet system that operates at 18bar. Water is injected into the material to be dredged a speed of 210km/hr, enabling the Lange Wapper to work successfully in the most compact material.
Dredging News Online
