On 6 February 2019 the Dutch Princess Beatrix officially inaugurated the third Princess Beatrix lock, near Utrecht in the Netherlands. The Princess rang a ship’s bell, giving the go-ahead for the first official passage of ships through the new lock.
Since September 2016 Jan De Nul Group, has been working on the construction of the third Princess Beatrix lock near Utrecht in the Netherlands.
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The official opening of the lock closes a construction period of 2.5 years. The two lock heads are each 30 x 60 meters. Each lock head includes two lock gates, each weighing 490,000 kilos and measuring 28 meters wide, 14 meters high and 6.25 meters thick.
Overall, 44,875 m³ of concrete and 17,900 tons of reinforcement were used to construct this new lock. Sas van Vreeswijk did the excavation of 2 million m³ in order to widen the access to the locks.
After the inauguration, the new lock will gradually come into service. From March until the summer 2019, the two old locks will be closed for renovation works. Meanwhile, the Lek Canal will be deepened more. In the autumn of 2019 all maintenance work will be completed and all three locks will be fully operational.
