"Bonny River" TSH Dredger Delivered

The trailing suction hopper dredger (TSHD) Bonny River built at Royal IHC’s Chinese partner yard COSCO Guangdong Shipyard was recently delivered to the Belgian dredging company DEME.   

The TSHD features a number of advance technologies, and is driven by controllable pitch propellers and transverse thrusters from Schottel. 

With a 15,000 cbm capacity, the vessel is capable of dredging hard soil and able to work in water depths of more than 100 m.

“The design of the Bonny River is inspired by a drive to continuously innovate from an ecological and efficiency perspective," said Jan Gabriel, Head of the Technical Construction and Conversion Department at DEME Group. 

Bonny River is driven by a pair of Schottel Controllable Pitch Propellers type SCP 129 4-XG with an input power of 8,000 kW each and a propeller diameter of 4.5 m. It reaches a speed of approximately 16 knots. Beyond this, maximum maneuverability and propulsion efficiency are provided by tunnel thrusters – two STT 3 FP (750 kW each) and one STT 5 FP (1,500 kW) – which can be demounted from above.

Together with Schottel’s control partner NORIS and IHC Systems, a complete power management system was developed. This controls the mechanically driven dredging pump, PTOs and the propellers without overloading the dual-fuel engines.