Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Displaying items by tag: Engineering

Following the recent acquisition of two Scottish based sites, Infratrata, owners of Belfast shipyard Harland & Wolff, is to open to prospective employees a careers open day.

The careers open day is to take place at H&W's (Methil) Forth of Fifth site this Thursday, 2nd June and aims to set a solid workforce foundation in preparation for its highly anticipated new contracts. (See related ESB offshore wind project story). 

It will provide an opportunity to meet and speak with existing Harland & Wolff employees who can share their experiences of working with the iconic brand.

The careers event day will run from 10am – 7.30pm, with prospective employees booking a time slot.

Prospective employees should register to attend here.

Published in Shipyards

There has been in recent years an explosion of public interest in historical photographs. As The Irish Times reports, the profusion of social media sites dedicated to the past, and cultural institutions such as the National Library and National Museum now regularly host exhibitions of historical photos.

Public companies have also recognised the importance of photographic archives. One Irish company now delving into its heritage is Dublin Port Company, whose archive dates back 300 years. It recently appointed a full-time heritage officer to oversee the company’s archive of photographs (including ships & dockers), engineering drawings, maps, charts and company records dating back 300 years.

A sizeable amount of the Dublin Port Company archive is made up of photographs from the late 19th century up to the late 20th century, including black and white glass plate negatives and colour transparencies. The majority are glass plates depicting site reports of engineering projects undertaken by the Dublin Port and Docks Board, such as the construction of Butt Bridge, completed for the 1932 Eucharistic Congress.

For more click here. On a related story, last month the DPC stepped in to preserve historic archives. 

Published in Dublin Port

#ISLAND NEWS - Cill Rónáin Harbour in the Aran Islands has been voted by the public as Best Engineering Project of the Year for 2012.

Silicon Republic reports on the announcement, made at the third Engineers Ireland Excellence Awards last Friday.

The harbour on Inis Mór is twice the size of Croke Park and was constructed from more than 77,000 of stone blocks from Connemara, a choice aimed at protecting the breakwater from erosion by the sea.

Its modern design is also the result of scale model testing by a UK-based hydro lab, while during construction the process was overseen by a marine mammal observer to ensure the disturbance to local marine wildlife was minimal.

The harbour was shortlisted along with other waterfront projects such as the Clonmel Food Relief Scheme, the Giant's Causeway Visitor Centre, the Michael O'Shaughnessy Bridge over the Eglinton Canal in Galway City, the north Co Dublin Waste Water Treatment Scheme and Titanic Belfast.

Silicon Republic has much more on the story HERE.

Published in Island News

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.