The Newcastle Port Corporation has as one of its key focus points, the effective management of shipping channels and maintenance, to ensure that the Ports customers are at no time inconvenienced by loss of depth due to siltation in the Hunter River.
The Newcastle Port Corporation's Trailer Suction dredger "David Allan" works in conjunction with the Survey team, to ensure that the channels and berths are maintained at their correct depth.
With the state of the art hydrographic survey/dredging technology on board, the dredge can identify with pinpoint accuracy silt affected areas.
The dredging process itself is called trailer-suction dredging. The dredger lowers its dredging arm, which is a large pipe of about a metre diameter, to the harbour bed. Water is pumped into the pipe to remove the air to create suction. This allows the excess mud and silt to be sucked from the harbour bed (something like a huge vacuum cleaner) as the dredger is manoeuvred through the area requiring dredging.
"David Allan", as well as trailer suction dredging, has a 20 tonne capacity grab. It also has been designed for pollution control via containment, recovery systems and storage tanks. It has a fire-fighting monitor with a 50 metre reach. She is regularly engaged in navigation buoy handling and replacement work within the port, and at sea.
She removes approximately 500,000 tonnes of actual silting material a year, with about 1000 trips to the spoil ground, which is 1.5 miles South East of Nobbys Head.
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