Concrete

26 September 2022

Concrete

When the sailing charter industry got off the ground in the Netherlands in the early eighties of the last century and more and more ships were added to the fleet, it was customary to pour concrete on the surface as ballast. Nice, cheap, and heavy enough. Fine so…

Fine, until you have to take it out about 30 years later to replace a piece of underwater hull. During the last two major renovations last year and about six years ago, it took us weeks to cut that concrete out. Sitting, without any headroom, with 15kg pneumatic concrete jets….dust and noise everywhere. I must have written something about it at the time.

This year everything is different. There are companies that can cut pieces out of the ship with a special diamond saw, with steel and concrete and all. They saw everything they come across in half. To everyone’s delight, we hired one of those companies and now, after a week of sawing, there are already six sections of the Oosterschelde on the quay. We have not yet held a concrete hammer ourselves!

-Greetings, Jan