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INAUGURATION OF NEW FLOATING DOCK AT DAMEN SHIPREPAIR DUNKERQUE
10th march 2017

This Friday, 10 March 2017, the new floating dock of Damen Shiprepair in Dunkerque-Port was officially inaugurated in the presence of many dignitaries including Éric Étienne,Sub-Prefect of Dunkirk District; Xavier Bertrand, President of the Hauts-de-France Region; Patrice Vergriete, Mayor of Dunkirk and President of Dunkirk Urban Community; Durk Jan Nederlof, CEO of Damen Shiprepair & Conversion; Bob Derks, President of Damen Shiprepair Dunkerque;  and Stéphane Raison, CEO of Dunkerque-Port.

Located in Dunkirk, the Damen Shiprepair Dunkerque yard offers recognised expertise in the repair and conversion of ships.

The yard is situated in the Eastern Port of Dunkirk, behind the locks, which ensures a constant water level regardless of tide. With three graving docks, 750 metres of repair quays and a modern workshop of 22,000 m² equipped with overhead travelling cranes of different lifting capacities, the yard can offer a multitude of specific services for shipowners. The largest dry dock is as wide as the largest lock in the port of Dunkirk, allowing it to accommodate ships of up to 180,000 tonnes DWT.  The yard also has a floating dock that can berth the largest ferries in operation.

In 2016, after being awarded the public works contract from Grand Port Maritime de Dunkerque, Damen Shiprepair Dunkerque was assigned the task of renovating the floor of its floating dock, Dock III. Following four months of studies and preparation by a dedicated team of ten technicians, 170 people worked night and day to cut out and remove the old floor, prefabricate and install the new structure and finally apply an anti-corrosion treatment to guarantee optimum protection of the new construction. 700 tonnes of steel was replaced, 12 tonnes of paint applied and 16 kilometres of welds executed. Thanks to efficient upstream preparation, the total renewal of the dock floor only took three months.

As well as enabling access to Dock III, the Dynamo pontoon is equipped with all the pumps required for the operation of Dock III. It also supplies the water and electricity necessary for the running of Dock III, and has a vast storage area.

This new dock floor, combined with a new access pontoon called Dynamo (2 M€ investments made by Damen Shiprepair Dunkerque), means that Dock III will be operational for the next 25 years.

When Damen arrived in 2012, Grand Port Maritime de Dunkerque (GPMD) undertook to carry out renovation works on the dock and repair basins for a total cost of 7.4 M€. This amount was finally revised to 9 M€, including 7.84 M€ for the dock alone. Most of the project was concerned with sheet metalwork (5.46 M€) and paintwork (1.82 M€). Over the entire work programme, the Hauts-de-France Region will contribute 4.6 M€, the remainder being funded by GPMD, the owner of the installations.

France remains a major player in European ship repair. Of the largest French sites (Dunkirk, Brest, Saint-Nazaire and Marseille), Brest and Dunkirk are the two leaders.

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