VESSEL REVIEW | Pancho & Cosette – Jan De Nul places new water injection dredgers into service

Dutch shipbuilder Neptune Marine has completed construction on two new water injection dredgers (WIDs) in a series ordered by the Jan De Nul Group.

Pancho and Cosette both utilise an existing Neptune Marine workboat design while the dredging equipment was built in-house by Jan De Nul. The equipment includes the dredge pump, dredge pipes, winches, hydraulics, and other necessary components for an adapted pipeline routing on the fore ship.

Each WID has an LOA of 27.53 metres, a moulded beam of 10 metres, a maximum draught of three metres, space for six crewmembers, and a total installed diesel engine power of 2,376 kW delivering a speed of 10 knots.

The vessels are capable of dredging at depths of 20 metres. Also, the water injection technology is especially suitable for maintenance dredging in areas where sediments were recently deposited, or for moving fine sand over shorter distances. This attribute, along with their compact size compared to trailing suction hopper dredgers, makes Jan De Nul's new WIDs ideal for deployment in ports and rivers where the work areas are typically smaller.

The WIDs are also configured for low-emission operations in line with Jan De Nul's aim of minimising the environmental impact of its vessel operations. The dredgers are equipped with a highly advanced dual exhaust gas filtration system that the company says can remove up to 99 per cent of the polluting nanoparticles from exhaust gases, using a diesel particulate filter (DPF). Also fitted are a selective catalytic reduction system (SCR) for significantly reducing NOx emissions.

These two vessels are the fourth and fifth WIDs as well as the smallest WIDs in the Jan De Nul dredging fleet. Jan De Nul added that Pancho will be used mainly to serve clients in the Argentine dredging market.