Erik van der Blom, Manager Development & Innovation at Royal IHC, gave a lecture last week about the 8.400m³ trailing suction hopper dredger (TSHD) Scheldt River at the Dutch maritime association KNVTS’ Zeeland department.
During this lecture, Erik highlighted some of the innovations on this vessel. Together with 50 shipbuilding technicians, he discussed these innovations and other new developments in the maritime industry.
In November 2018, Royal IHC was awarded the KNVTS Ship of the Year award for the TSHD, designed and built for DEME.
The dredger, and the smaller IHC-built DEME vessel Minerva, are the world’s first dual-fuel TSHDs that can operate on LNG. For that reason, this is a groundbreaking project in itself. It has several other innovative features that make it a smart vessel and is therefore a worthy winner of the Ship of the Year title.
Royal IHC and DEME developed several innovations for Scheldt River, such as a hybrid dredge pump drive system in combination with improved Wärtsilä engine management to reduce the effect of load variations and stay within the critical limits of dual-fuel LNG engines.
For automation of the dredging process, Royal IHC developed the intelligent IHC ECO automation package, which results in high dredge performance. Additionally, fuel efficiency is achieved with two-speed propulsion, optimizing fuel consumption in sailing and dredging conditions.