Dry dock operational

Salvaging company Svitzer was given the assignment to salvage a 165- by 35-metre dry dock that had run aground during a storm in Sweden at the end of 2011. The dry dock ended up in very shallow waters in the heart of an extremely vulnerable nature reserve. Van Heck pumps were used to get the dock afloat again. The actual assignment was handled by Koole, who built a pool around the dock with a dike and dam walls and a 1.8-kilometre seaward canal. The 6,000-ton dock was buoyed up by pumping the pool full of water, after which it was towed back to sea.

Simple is beautiful

An enthusiastic Jeroen van Heck recounts: “The funniest thing about it all is that we came up with a lot of amazing solutions, but Koole ultimately chose the simplest one. We call that ‘simple is beautiful’. I totally agree with that principle, so I love working like that. But I also enjoy coming up with other solutions!” After a few weeks of preparatory work, the pumping operations were finished in two days.