First Floating Gate 420 arrived in Toulon!

 

After 20 days of transit from St-Nazaire to Toulon, the 42 meters caisson lock gate designed by MAURIC is finally arrived in the Naval Base of Toulon, its home port.

The French Defense Infrastructure Service (ESID) launched a tender for the conception and the construction of two floating gates for the French Naval Base of Toulon. The partnership MAURIC - JOSEPH PARIS won this tender in 2016. After 18 months of design and engineering studies and twelve months of construction by JOSEPH PARIS teams, BP 12 finally left St-Nazaire harbour the 18th of April 2019, towed by a tug in the direction of Toulon with a max speed of 3 kts.

The 8th May 2019, the floating gate arrived in the Naval Base of Toulon, and is now ready to close the “Vauban” basin to enable maintenance and reparation of naval vessels in the graving dock. This new caisson lock gate is going to replace an 80 years old gate that does not meet actual operational and safety constraints (seismic and shock). Moreover, this equipment has the specificity to be interchangeable and reversible, a characteristic that enables to close both ends of the Vauban basin depending the needs. With a length of 42 meters, 15 m height, 9 m breadth and 1200 t of displacement, this vessel is not propelled and need tug assistance for each movement. When the equipment is moved to the right place, 540 t of this floating gate are filled in with water (by self-gravity) to close the dock and make it dry.

Thanks to this project, MAURIC add a new reference for this type of marine equipment from its portfolio and continue to prove its excellence in the design of complex tailor-made floating structures. A second unit of this caisson lock gate, based on MAURIC Floating Gate 420 design, will be delivered to the ESID for the Toulon Naval Base by end of 2020, where the Charles-De-Gaulle aircraft carrier is maintained.