The increasing amounts of sand and gravel to be extracted from the sea bed around the UK led British Ropeway Engineering Company (BRECO) to pioneer the development of self-discharging systems for aggregate dredgers and other vessels used for bringing the material ashore from the dredging grounds. Among the vessels to use this equipment was the MV Cambrae, owned and operated by Civil & Marine Ltd.
Experience with the Cambrae led Civil & Marine to continue the line of development on their latest vessel, MV Camboume. For this they have combined the resources of BRECO (a member of the Capper Neill Group) with those of Strachan & Henshaw to develop a self-discharging ship which is designed around an excavating bucket wheel coupled to an on-board conveying system. The result is a vessel which can unload her cargo of 2,600 m3 of material on to a shore-going conveyor system in under three hours (Fig. 1).
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