Work on the “Mediterranean” floating dock’s shore anchorage system has been completed successfully. The infrastructure has been firmly anchored to Pier 76 after the tests carried out by the Port Authority’s technicians had revealed some critical issues on the shore anchoring system with particular reference to the anchors that had been fitted over 20 years ago.
The floating dock consists of a 40 m wide, 180 m long steel structure with two metal guides on the side. Running inside each of them there is a steel anchor that ensures the anchorage of the dock to the quayside, while allowing it to sink and re-emerge.
The anchor cables, which connect the anchors to the quay caissons, had in fact lost their effectiveness due to constant contact with the waves.
“This work”- said the Port Network Authority’s technical director, Enrico Pribaz – “involved dismantling the old anchors and rebuilding the dock’s concrete structure, creating a different anchoring mechanism capable of absorbing the cyclical effects from the movement of the waves, without leading to a drop in performance over time. To do this, we had to take the dock out of service, free it from its guides and position it securely on the seabed, so as to exploit the friction between the dock’s flat hull and the seabed to keep it moored. Now the dock is operational again and firmly anchored to the quayside.”
The work took about 6 months and cost 1.2 million euros.
Translation by Giles Foster
