Three months after docking, the refurbished reserve gate of the Kaiserschleuse lock was undocked from Kaiserdock I at the Lloyd shipyard in Bremerhaven for port operator Bremenports.
With the help of the floating crane “BHV Athlet“, the lock gate built in 2011 was floated out of the 220 m long Kaiserdock. The gate is 57 m long, 11 m wide and 21 m high and weighs 2,500 tons. To enable the dock gate to be floated out, the water level in the entire overseas port had to be raised considerably beforehand so that the dock could float free of the bracing.
In addition to regular inspections of the structure, the reason for the docking was primarily to carry out extensive repair and conversion work. “Due to the masses of water, the operating gates of the locks are under constantly changing loads. To ensure that they can cope with this, they are therefore replaced, inspected and repaired at regular intervals by their respective reserve gates,” reports Michael Staar, Bremenports team leader for mechanical and hydraulic steel engineering in the Technical Facilities division. These measures made the docking necessary – because the work was mainly carried out in the underwater area of the gates.
For example, the lifting cylinders of the Kaiserschleuse lock gate, which was built in Gdansk at the time, were also closely examined. These were removed and replaced with new ones that had already been procured.
North lock reserve gate in the dock
The reserve gate of the northern lock is also still in the dry dock. Built in 1931 and therefore 94 years old, it is a senior citizen among Bremerhaven’s “gates to the world”, so to speak. The gate is 47 m long, 11 m wide and 19.5 m high and weighs 1,100 tons. The repair work will focus, among other things, on the partially riveted construction. Finally, extensive conservation work will follow. The sealing and slide rails on both gates will also be replaced and the electrotechnical components checked and adjusted if necessary, according to a bremenports spokesperson.
As the work on the older north lock gate will take even longer, it will remain in the dock for longer. However, the free space in the dock will first be used to carry out necessary maintenance work on the polar research icebreaker “Polarstern” from the AWI (Alfred Wegener Institute). It will be docked there in the next few days and will remain there until mid-May. The remaining maintenance work on the reserve gate of the northern lock will not be continued until the research vessel, which is now years old, has left Kaiserdock I.
This lock gate will then also be returned to its waiting position until it is needed in the north lock again. This gate will not have to wait long for its next use, as the next scheduled lock gate replacement is already planned for late summer. (CE)
