Shanghai shipbuilder launches Asia's largest dredgers

Two of Asia's largest and most automated dredgers, the Tong Jun and the Jun Guang, were floated out in Qidong, Jiangsu province, on Aug 26, marking a major achievement for Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries.

Dredgers, often called island-building marvels, play a key role in maritime transport, performing tasks such as excavating navigation channels, constructing ports, and coastal land reclamation.

Measuring 198 meters long, 38.5 meters wide, and 18 meters deep, each dredger has a maximum hopper capacity of 35,000 cubic meters, the largest in Asia.

The volume of silt one vessel can dredge and discharge is enough to raise a standard football field by five meters.

With a maximum dredging depth of 120 meters, which is equivalent to working at the depth of a 40-story building underneath the sea, the dredgers can handle more silt sources, showcasing China's advanced capabilities in deep-sea dredging.

The two dredgers deliver exceptional performance, including deep excavation, strong soil-breaking ability, long transport range, and extended discharge distance. They are designed for operations such as waterway dredging, deep-sea sand extraction, land reclamation, seabed mining, trench excavation and back-filling, rubble bed construction, and deep-sea pipeline laying.

Equipped with a self-developed intelligent operating system, the vessels can automatically adapt to different soil types and seabed environments. Under typical working conditions, they can even perform unmanned dredging.

Previously, dredging relied heavily on manual operations, which were inefficient and prone to errors. Today, operators simply press buttons in the control room, and the dredgers can carry out complex tasks, significantly improving efficiency and safety.

Under normal working conditions, the dredgers can fill their hoppers in 90 minutes, demonstrating world-class loading efficiency.