Completion work is keeping up for the lock gates that arrived at the Port of Amsterdam at the beginning of this year, the port announced. After completion, a testing period will be run at OpenIJ Logistics Centre in Amsterdam.
Then the gates will be transported back to IJmuiden where they will be manoeuvred into place in the lock gate chamber of the inner head.
The gate for the lock gate chamber of the outer head is already in IJmuiden, where it has been moored inside part of the future lock chamber in a section that has already been dredged.
This lock gate will be completed on-site and then manoeuvred into place in the outer head.
In January, tug master Marcel van Peenen was the one who towed one of the enormous lock gates from Rotterdam to IJmuiden, his home port. The towing vessel left Rotterdam on 23 January.
The lock gate was towed by two tugs. The ‘leading tug’ was secured forward, doing the actual towing work. Telstar was secured aft to make steering adjustments when necessary.
The last part of the voyage – the passage through the IJmuiden North Lock – was the most difficult one. Because local knowledge was required for lock passage, a local tug had to take the position of the leading tug. We sailed from Rotterdam to IJmuiden with a tug from Dordrecht, but once inside the IJmuiden breakwaters our colleagues from Iskes took over and Brent became the leading tug,
…Van Peenen explained.
