The navigation channel through the Vistula Spit is ready! The construction of one of the most complicated hydro-technical investments in Poland – the canal connecting the Gulf of Gdansk with the Vistula Lagoon – has been completed. Thanks to good design and excellent organization of all supplies and works, the construction of the Vistula Spit Crossing was completed in just 35 months.
The Vistula Spit Crossing is a strategic investment for Poland. Thanks to it, for the first time in Poland’s post-war history it will be possible to enter the Vistula Lagoon bypassing Russian territorial waters. The legitimacy of the government’s decision to launch this investment is particularly evident in today’s geopolitical situation,” said Infrastructure Minister Andrzej Adamczyk.
We are opening the Vistula Spit Crossing, we have been waiting for this moment for many years. On September 17, the Shipping Channel will be launched. On that day, ships will gain free access to all ports of the Vistula Lagoon and, most importantly, to the seaport in Elblag. This will complete the first and most important stage of this investment,” added Deputy Infrastructure Minister Marek Gróbarczyk.
The construction of the shipping canal, which connected the Vistula Lagoon with the Gulf of Gdansk, was a spectacular investment from the beginning. This is evidenced both by the wide and extremely diverse range of tasks to be carried out and the amount of material used. The project envisaged the simultaneous construction of a sheltering harbour on the side of the Gulf of Gdansk and a shipping channel with locks and closure structures, together with waiting berths on the side of the Gulf of Gdansk and the Vistula Lagoon, as well as the construction of a new road system with movable steel bridges with a vertical axis of rotation, and even the construction of a so-called artificial island on the Vistula Lagoon.
– We can say that everything is buttoned up to the last button. It took us less than three years to build the Vistula Spit crossing along with the artificial island in the Vistula Lagoon. We did a lot of pre-investment work, which took several years. We carried out the assumed schedule on schedule. This was possible thanks to the commitment, going beyond the scope of normal work, of the team implementing the project, consisting of substantive employees of various specialties of the Maritime Office in Gdynia. For this enormous contribution of work I sincerely thank them all! – said the director of the Maritime Office in Gdynia Wieslaw Piotrzkowski.
Today apart from the cleanup work, which will take a few more weeks, the shipping channel through the Vistula Spit is ready. Ships that will cross it from the Gulf of Gdansk will enter the newly built sheltering port. This one consists of the more than 1,000-meter-long eastern breakwater and the more than 500-meter-long western breakwater. Its total area is 260,000 square meters.
– We are pleased that we have completed the work on schedule. The construction of the navigation channel and the artificial island is one of the more unusual hydrotechnical projects in Poland, and we are extremely pleased that its implementation fell to us,” said Malgorzata Winiarek-Gajewska, President of the NDI Group. – The project aroused great interest, so together with the Investor we tried to regularly inform the public both about the progress of the work and to share our experiences from the implementation with the community of engineers and students of technical universities. Thanks to this, not only our staff, but also many interested people could learn about the solutions used here in practice. I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely congratulate and thank the entire team who put a lot of strength and heart into the implementation of this project,” adds President of the NDI Group.
First time in the world
The amount of materials used to build it is impressive – it is 400 thousand tons of stone surcharges, made on the breakwaters, and almost 10 thousand pieces of so-called x-blocks, that is, precisely placed prefabricated concrete elements to combat dangerous waves during harsh weather conditions.
Source: PortalMorski.pl
