Page 33: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (December 2023)

Image courtesy GLDD

DGE ALVESTON SLAND G I

Senior Director Sales - Global Marine and Stationary, Wabtec, off we are. Minimizing weight is an important consideration for makes the system smaller and simpler for the customer the that type of vessel and it links right into the reduced weight of the cost and maintenance of extra equipment, as well as urea engine as well as the lack of the after treatment (weight).” which is a consumable. “So we reduce that cost, that operation While dredges are indeed the very de? nition of ‘Monster complexity and make it much simpler to operate with a plug- Machines’, Gunsten reckons that more than ever software and and-play medium speed 900 RPM engine system,” said Webb. cloud computing are central to dredging ef? ciency. “Having a

In designing and building the engines that will power both new modern vessel with a modern dredge control and monitor- of GLDDs new hopper dredges, Webb said compatibility in ing system (DCMS) allows us to optimize,” he said. “Bridg- space and ease of use were central themes. ing on that and working into this new cloud-based world, she “We’ve tried to make build and design this engine to ? t in can broadcast that data and we can access that anywhere in the a lot of our competitor’s footprints from the last 50 years of world, speci? cally here at our headquarters in Houston, where legacy engines,” said Webb. “So that makes it easy for design- we plan to set up a data center to look at that information and ers and operators to have a very simple setup.” In emphasizing have our experts analyze that real time. [This means] there’s the importance of “no urea”, Webb noted that some of the urea no lag in those optimizations [and we] get the most out of the tanks can range up to 10,000 gallons, compounded by a USCG investment in this new vessel.” requirement for crawl spaces around the tanks in the event of a leak. “[Urea tanks are] big structures that are very expensive to build; that goes away with the Wabtec Tier 4. We don’t have those tanks, so designers can use that space for carrying capacity.

If it’s a hopper dredge, they can have larger hoppers. If it’s a ves- sel that carries cargo, they can have more cargo, they have more machinery space like with the Galveston Island,” said Webb.

In con? rming the engine choice, Gunsten said, “In essence, the hopper dredge is a cargo vessel and it works on a cyclical basis multiple times per day. So the more sand we can carry, the better

GALVESTON ISLAND MAIN PARTICULARS

Name Galveston Island

Type Trailing Suction Hopper Dredge

Capacity 6,500-cu.-yd.

Shipowner Great Lakes Dredge & Dock (GLDD)

Shipbuilder Conrad Shipyard

T W HE ABTEC

Main Engines Wabtec Corporation 2x12V250MDCx6L250MDC 12V250MDC

Naval Architect C-Job

Genset Integrator Cummins

Image courtesy Wabtec www.marinelink.com 33

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