Progress report on 'Vox Dubai'

Sections of the ‘Vox Dubai’, the largest trailing suction hopper dredger to be built in the Netherlands, have been moved from a floating pontoon into the IHC Dredgers shipbuilding hall in Kinderdijk.

The 31,200 cubic metre dredger will measure 200 metres in length, with a beam of 31 metres and a moulded depth of 17.5 metres, putting it into the jumbo hopper dredger category, of which there are only twelve vessels worldwide. The ship has a dredging depth of 70 metres and it is being built for Van Oord. It will be launched in the spring of 2009. The keel was laid on in late May at the IHC Merwede yard in Kinderdijk, after preparations for the technical details of the project were worked out. The first sections were built at VSH in Heusden, which is a subsidiary of IHC Merwede. The ‘Vox Dubai’ consists of more than 200 sections. The three midship, which intermediate the deck sections together, are 100 metres long and 31 metres wide, with a depth of 9.6 metres. The main engines each measure 10 metres by 5 metres by 5 metres, and generate a combined power of about 28 megawatts.
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