Southampton port is ready to handle the biggest ships in the world after the completion of a £40 million dredging project. Since 2013 dredgers from the Dutch company Boskalis have been dredging and widening the 25 nautical miles of the main approach channel to ensure that ships with a draught of up to 15.5m – currently the largest ships in the world – can access the Port’s container terminal.
The dredging programme is the last piece of the project to improve the container terminal and ensure that it can handle ever larger ships in the future. The terminal’s new SCT 5 berth, opened in March 2014, has a 500m deepwater quay and is purpose-built to cater for the largest ships in the world.
The dredging benefits a wide range of commercial shipping that use the port, including vessels serving Marchwood Military Port and using Fawley Re finery. AM
