Harwood Marine – situated on the Clarence River in Northern New South Wales Australia – has completed regular maintenance of the hopper dredge David Allan.
The dredger is one of the most familiar vessels in the Port of Newcastle (NSW).
The vessel recently underwent its five yearly docking and major refit at Harwood Marine. After 7 weeks of maintenance, Harwood today returned to the water the Newcastle’s port dredge.
With the fresh coat of paint and other repairs, this hopper dredge looks like new again.
Port of Newcastle recently celebrated 160 years of continuous dredging. The dredging of the channel began in March 1859 using ladder dredges to remove mud, sand, boulders and surface rock.
These days, managing thousands of ships a year depends heavily on the work of the 70-metre David Allan, which operates 12 hours per day, seven days a week.
The David Allan is tasked with maintaining a channel depth of 15.2 metres along a nine-kilometre stretch from the breakwalls to the Kooragang 10 berth in the Hunter River’s South Arm.