CLEARANCE SEA-FLOOR OF SEVERAL ANCHORAGES 

The Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment awarded DUC Diving a contract for cleaning the designated anchorages in front of the seaports of Flushing, Rotterdam and IJmuiden. Vessels sometimes lose their anchors due to metal fatigue or bad weather. The lost anchors are a danger to the vessels who use the anchorage, as they may cause their own anchor to get stuck during retrieval.

In two months, DUC Diving cleared the sea bottom around the anchorages. Not only did we remove all objects but also their position, orientation and state were described in detail. For this operation we deployed our vessel Ram and a team of 8 persons. The Ram positioned herself on a three point mooring above the location, and a diver descended to the seafloor.

Due to the dynamics of the sea, often the target was washed over with a layer of up to 1 m of sand, so the divers had to search for the object. After locating the object and a documenting a thorough description on how the object was found, the object was hoisted onto the deck, cleaned and inspected again.
In total approximately 300 m2 kilometer was searched and 300 ton of steel debris was salvaged, including
– 40 anchors (individual anchors 700 to 8.000 kg);
– 3.000 meter chains (individual shackles 10 cm to 50 cm);
– 500 m steel cable;
– Fish netting, boulders, concrete and a 17th century canon.