Events

Innovations improving Maritime Safety, at Port of Zeebrugge

At the initiative of the European Community Shipowners’ Associations (ECSA), shipowners and shipping industry leaders have joined forces and organised the first European Shipping Week (ESW) from 2nd to 6th March 2015.(for a complete overview of the week’s events and additional information: click here.). Centred around a Flagship conference, Europe’s main shipping organisations as well as the European Commission organised a series of high level events bringing together the major players in the shipping industry to promote the strengths and the importance of European and global shipping to legislators in Brussels such as the European Commission, European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.
As shipping is of strategic importance to the EU economy, so is its safety. Maritime safety policy and related legislations promote high-quality standards and aim at increasing the protection of both human lives (e.g. passengers and crews) and the environment (reduce risks of pollution).

Seminar and Technical Visit
As a member of the ESW Steering Group, the European Dredging Association (EuDA) organised on 5^th March 2015 a seminar on ‘Innovations improving Maritime Safety ‘ followed by a technical visit illustrating some aspects the technological solutions offered by the dredgers. Opened by a Welcome Address by Mr Joachim Coens and an Opening Address by Mr Markku Mylly, EMSA Executive Director, the Maritime Safety aspect on which the seminar focused was the ‘safe place of refuge’.

Indeed, during the seminar, EuDA presented specifically designed artificial islands using hydraulic engineering or naval architecture, combining sand and rock or metal, which could be used, amongst other purposes, as innovative solutions for safe places of refuge for sea vessels. The seminar briefly touched on the feasibility of building a kind of safety belt around European Waters but concluded on the potentially significant contribution to Blue Growth in and outside Europe. Ms Barbara Sellier, Policy Officer and EMSA Liaison for the Unit in charge of Maritime Safety, concluded the seminar and gave the closing address.

EuDA members strongly believe that the growth potential for the dredging industry in Europe and worldwide lies in the design, construction and maintenance of sustainable multipurpose maritime infrastructures: using, instead of fighting, the forces (physical and biological) of nature to build multipurpose maritime infrastructures providing services beneficial to the environment, the society and/or the economy.

The rising of the level of the oceans will also automatically generate the need of protecting vulnerable coastal areas. The coasts of the world have to be protected from erosion, from floods, from storms and raising sea level. Renewable offshore energy from wind, from tidal forces or from waves, are becoming also an ever increasing playfield for the dredging industry.
The future of the dredging industry lies in the sea and the growing world population will have to integrate the sea in its daily life.

For the short introduction to dredging presented during the technical visit: click here.

For the seminar’s overview and key messages: click here.

For the Participants’ List: click here.

For the speakers’ presentations see below:

Welcome Address

• Mr Joachim Coens
  Managing Director of the Port Authority Bruges-Zeebrugge

Opening Address

• Mr Markku Mylly
  EMSA Executive Director (European Maritime Safety Agency)

Moderation:

• Mr John Richardson
  FIPRA International Special Adviser on Maritime Affairs, moderating the conference.

Speakers:

• Mr Bernard Malherbe
  JDN, Project Manager of Flanders Bays 2100
  presenting “Integrated Coastal Zone & Coastal Seas Management: Views and Pleas by Dredging Contractors”.
• Mr Frank Verschraegen
  DEME, Project Leader of iLand
  presenting “Energy Islands”.
• Mr Francois Duthoit
  DCNS, Chairman of the Waterborne WG on Blue Growth
  presenting “Scalable Modular Large Scale Floating Offshore Platforms”.
• Mr Paris Sansoglou
  EuDA Secretary General
  presenting “Possible sources of financing for artificial ‘safety’ islands”.

Closing Address:

• Ms Barbara Sellier
  Policy Officer at the European Commission’s Unit on Maritime Safety (DG MOVE)