Caterpillar Marine - Marine Engines Caterpillar

Newbuildings at the Yard in Harlingen
The dock has a length of 145m and a
width of 30m with a water depth of
10m. The modern construction hall covering
the dock is 150m long and 50m
wide and equipped with two mobile
overhead cranes capable of together
transporting loads of up to 200t. The
spacious hall also accommodates the
rooms for the works management and
the project teams, as well as the facilities
of the subcontractors, which also
have separate access from the central
parking place. The capacity of the
180m long fitting-out pier has been
nearly doubled with the installation
of an additional floating pier. The ships
being fitted out are easily accessible
independent of the tide.
The repair area in Harlingen was
acquired at the beginning of this year
by Shipdock BV, which has its headquarters
in Amsterdam.
Wide construction programme
Volharding convincingly claims that
it is not a one-sided shipbuilder, but
has great experience in the construction
of many types of vessel and their
fitting out, also with different propulsion
plants. It also emphasises that it
has wide experience working with partner
companies in the Netherlands and
other countries. These are shipyards as
well as customers and suppliers, with
which Volharding aims to cooperate
closely at the earliest possible phase
in project development. This approach
benefits both sides by avoiding misun-
derstandings, which mostly result in
delays and frequently higher costs. Volharding’s
wide experience is shown by
the fact that it has built containerships
and multipurpose vessels, tankers for
various types of cargo, Ro-Ro and Sto-
Ro carriers and special-purpose ships
meeting the highest technical standards
for the particular requirements.
The company expanded its product
range only recently with two new
interesting vessel types. One is an icestrengthened
container feeder ship
with 917 TEU capacity, of which initially
a series is being built at Deniz Shipyard
in Izmir. The design is based on a
former 750 TEU type. The other type is
a 4,000 tdw chemicals tanker capable
of transporting six different types of
cargo simultaneously in twelve cargo
tanks. Four units of this type have been
ordered by a Norwegian shipping line.
These newbuildings are built entirely in
Harlingen.
Shipyard portrait
The construction of multipurpose
heavy-lift ships for Beluga-Shipping, the
design of which was formulated with
the customer, has also attracted great
interest. The vessels with a maximum
crane capacity of 2 x 250t are among
the heavyweights in this segment and
thus particularly suitable for transporting
project cargoes. After the “Beluga
Revolution” as type ship, three more of
these 10,536 tdw vessels entered service
under German flag during 2005, followed
by two units lengthened from
134.6m to 159.7m. The hulls of these
vessels were also built at the Daewoo
Mangalia yard in Romania and taken to
the Netherlands for fitting out.
The propulsion concept of these ships,
which have already been well received
by the market, is based on a mediumspeed
four-stroke diesel engine of the
type Caterpillar MaK 8M43, which is
suitable for heavy oil operation and
develops 7,200 kW at 500 1/min to
provide a ship speed of 18 knots. The
output has meanwhile been increased
up to 8,000 kW. Volharding has for a
long time enjoyed a good relationship
with Caterpillar via the Dutch representative
MaK Nederland/Bolier. Many
of the newbuildings built at the Volharding
yards incorporate the successful
MaK engines. The company considers
that its effective cooperation with
Caterpillar is further strengthened
by the support the latter also offers
with financing. This good relationship
can certainly be expanded, according
to Volharding, and Caterpillar will
also certainly continue to contribute
to this.
Volharding main office in Westerbroek
19