Dover Outer Harbour Wave Wall

LOCATION:

Port of Dover

Coasts & Ports

A £4.2m project to construct a 70m detached wave wall in the outer harbour to provide additional protection to the marina. The screen alleviates swell caused by wave energy potentially reflected at high water during periods of exceptionally severe weather.

This project was constructed under the Port of Dover Civil Engineering Maintenance Framework, originally awarded to us for five years and subsequently extended to seven.

Installed 59 x 1,067mm diameter, 27m long tubular steel piles to form the wave wall.
Installed 21 x 1,067 diameter piles to facilitate installation of a work boat pontoon.
Manufactured and installed a platform complete with ladder and ladder guard, to support and access a navigation light.
Supplied and installed the navigation light.
Painted the two piles on either end of the wave wall.
Supplied and installed retro-reflective tape to the end piles of the wave wall to facilitate navigation.
Supplied and installed all pile caps.

Challenges

UXO clearance.

Weather affecting the programme and potentially impacting costs.

Name Surname
Job role on project

Solutions

UXO clearance was conducted from the deck of a 100t capacity jack-up barge using a long reach excavator and magnetometer cone penetration testing. When a delay arose in issuing the UXO clearance certificate, we worked with the Port of Dover to change the sequencing of activities to prevent unnecessary stand down costs. This extended to arranging for the workboat and piling rig to move to another of our sites to accelerate those works while the UXO clearance was completed. This prevented a stand down charge for the rig.

Working together with our partner Red 7 Marine, we proposed and discussed the requirement for every pile to be hammered home. Testing informed the designers which in turn led to reducing the requirement to use the drop hammer. This achieved a programme and cost saving as well as a reducing noise levels in the public realm.