Hamburg, as one of the world’s largest ports, is dependent on the fairway along the river Elbe from its river mouth at sea 116 km upstream to the entrance of the harbour of Hamburg.
To allow the new generation of large container vessels to access and leave the harbour and to strengthen the position of Hamburg in the global trade, made the deepening of the fairway essential.
With a strong fleet of trailing suction hopper dredgers, backhoe dredgers, barges and big size spreader pontoons we deepen the Elbe by 1,0 m on a length of 116 km from the river mouth to the harbour of Hamburg.
Some sections are additionally being widened to allow big vessels up to 60 m width passing each other.
In total a volume of 32 million m³ of different soil types will be dredged and disposed in designated underwater disposal areas which are constructed to influence the tidal effect on the river Elbe.
For the pumping procedure pipelines up to 4 km are used consisting of a combination between sinker and floating pipelines.
