The long standing bottleneck on the Elbe, the channel to the Port of Hamburg has a solution with the dredging of a 5km section that is called the passing box that is now under Federal jurisdiction and has a width of 385m.
Vessels with a combined width of up to 98 metres may pass each other in a widened section of the river as from 28 January 2020.
Similarly, the fairway along the 36km stretch between Wedel and the mouth of the Stör has been widened from 300 to 320m. From the same date, in this segment ships with a combined width of 92m may pass each other.
The holding area at Brunsbüttel has also been completed. This has been available as anchorage since the end of last year – when allocated by the traffic control centre. This offers ships dependent on the tide, and unable to make the tide ‘window’ for unforeseeable reasons, the opportunity of waiting during the new low water phase. The holding area forms an essential element of the safety concept.
Andreas Scheuer, German minister of transport and digital infrastructure, stressed the importance of the completion of the dredging work which started in July 2019, “This boosts flexibility, efficiency, capacity and safety. Because more and also larger vessels can call and depart simultaneously, the number of mega-containerships can then be more than doubled to 2,800 containerships per year.”
Currently, work is in progress on deepening the entire stretch so that ships dependent on the tide, and those that are not, will gain from one extra metre of loaded draft. The works will be completed next year.
