HEIMDAL R

[Patrick Hill]

Passing Paull 17/03/2021 for Alexandra dock, Werner quay. A former supply vessel converted to a dredger. Her fleetmate FREKE R (hopper) was also inward but was only managing 2 knots flat out against the falling tide so turned back to the Bull anchorage.

[Hornbeam]

Hopefully they prove to be a more profitable conversion being a Grab Dredger rather than the Suction 'El Faro' which was a heap of junk after B.P. Tankers had finished with it even before being converted, although the Dutch have converted a former Container Ship called 'Yed Prior' into a Suction Dredger for aggregate recently. Dredging could be hazardous in the North Sea I suspect bearing in mind the amount of Bombs that were dumped there after WW2 ended. It was bad enough on the Tees picking up old Ammunition that someone had threw overboard and listening to it rattling through the Suction Pump on the Reclamation Plant Ron@?

[Patrick Hill]

Fleetmate FREKE R is now on her way to Klaipeda - I wonder if they decided that she wouldn't be able to handle the tides on the Humber?

[Patrick Hill]

Looks like the job's been cancelled, HEIMDAL R just off the berth sailing back to Esbjerg.

[Hornbeam]

For those who are not familiar with Floating Reclamation plants the one on the Tees had no Propulsion Plant and when I was on her she was moored on the East side of the Tees Dock which was in the very early process of construction at the time, the Plant was filling in the area to the East of the Dock which eventually had a Refinery construction built there (that didn't last too long before it was deconstructed). The Plant was all Electric barring for the Emergency Domestic Genny which was a four cylinder Gardner if I remember correctly, power for the Electric Pump Motors was from shoreside, there were two large pumps, one the Water Injection pump which pumped water into the spoil which was in the Hopper Barge for the Suction Pump to to draw and push the spoil along the pipeline to the outfall. Being Electric barring for the Hum of the Electric Motors it was a very quiet operation which meant you could hear quite clearly anything metallic passing through the pump unlike No1 Suction Dredger/Hopper where everything including the two main engines and the unidirectional (no Stephenson Reversing Links) Suction Pump were steam driven which meant the Engineroom was not a quiet environment (but certainly not as bad as a Diesel Engineroom) nevertheless you could not hear anything passing through the Pump unless it screeched to a halt with a 'Foreign Object' jammed in it. One of these 'Foreign Objects' I still have somewhere in the house which was fortunately a used Bofors Shellcase which I titevated up, gave it a good polish and used as a Poker Stand in those far off days when most houses had coal fires and a Lambswool Rug in front of it.

[teesships]

For those interested there is a separate NEM page for the RECLAMATION PLANT at
viewtopic.php?f=139&t=4918

Ron M

[Patrick Hill]

And she's back! Without support of a hopper it looks like it's going to be a slow process - loading onto her deck, then at the deposit ground having to grab the spoil off the deck to dump.

[Hornbeam]

Where abouts is she working Patrick are they digging a trench for a particular reason possibly to bury cables from Dogger Bank? Ron@?

[Patrick Hill]

Where abouts is she working Patrick are they digging a trench for a particular reason possibly to bury cables from Dogger Bank? Ron@?

She's dredging the berth at Werner Quay (Alexandra dock jetty as it was) for the arrival of the jackup windfarm vessels. In 2018 they dropped stone to the river bed for the legs to sit on, they are tidying it up and there is supposed to be more stone to be dropped as part of these works.

All the cables from Hornsea Wind Farm come ashore in Lincolnshire IIRC.

[Hornbeam]

Thank You for the further info Patrick, thought it may also be possibly for another pipeline to the Easington Gas plant before it falls into the sea they certainly built that on the wrong side of the road, the Gryones they put in to protect it are causing havoc further up the coast from what I gather with the Gunnery Range at Cowden slowly disappearing into the sea. I was down that way setting up a former M.O.D. Teleprinter for the man who runs the Holmpton Nuclear Bunker, nice chap. Ron@?r
Predictive texting caught me out on Gryones. Injuries to the Groin are what happens when you try to use them as Hurdles and come a Cropper