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Displaying items by tag: Nearing Completion

A massive development in the Port of Cork of a new container handling terminal at Ringaskiddy, is almost complete and, when operational, will future-proof the transit of imports and exports for Ireland.

Work on the €86m project - the biggest single investment ever made by the Port of Cork - started in 2018. It has been a huge undertaking, involving the dredging of 285,000 tonnes of silt and rock, the laying of 92,000 sq m of concrete and the development of 2kms of new roads at the 150-acre site.

A lot of the silt was buried at sea, close to Roche's Point, under an EPA licence, while most of the rock was ground up and used for infill at the site.

Jim Murphy, project and development engineer with the Port of Cork, explained that the new 360m-long quay (equipped with STS gantry cranes) had a 13m depth of water, meaning it is capable of handling the biggest container ships in the world.

“They are typically 300m long and 16 containers wide. The containers are 40ft long each and the Ringaskiddy terminal will be able to handle 280,000 of these containers every year,” Mr Murphy said.

Port of Cork's new gantry cranes Photo: Bob BatemanPort of Cork's new gantry cranes Photo: Bob Bateman

This is approximately 40,000 more containers than can be handled (upriver) at Tivoli, where operations will start to be phased out once Ringaskiddy is fully up and running.

Further Irish Examiner coverage of the port project here.

Published in Port of Cork

Shipyards

Afloat will be focusing on news and developments of shipyards with newbuilds taking shape on either slipways and building halls.

The common practice of shipbuilding using modular construction, requires several yards make specific block sections that are towed to a single designated yard and joined together to complete the ship before been launched or floated out.

In addition, outfitting quays is where internal work on electrical and passenger facilities is installed (or upgraded if the ship is already in service). This work may involve newbuilds towed to another specialist yard, before the newbuild is completed as a new ship or of the same class, designed from the shipyard 'in-house' or from a naval architect consultancy. Shipyards also carry out repair and maintenance, overhaul, refit, survey, and conversion, for example, the addition or removal of cabins within a superstructure. All this requires ships to enter graving /dry-docks or floating drydocks, to enable access to the entire vessel out of the water.

Asides from shipbuilding, marine engineering projects such as offshore installations take place and others have diversified in the construction of offshore renewable projects, from wind-turbines and related tower structures. When ships are decommissioned and need to be disposed of, some yards have recycling facilities to segregate materials, though other vessels are run ashore, i.e. 'beached' and broken up there on site. The scrapped metal can be sold and made into other items.