TX1 at the Superporto do Açú, the project
which is currently occupying all of my time”.
This is the first time ever that floating cais-
sons will travel such a long distance.
What does working in such a huge pro-
ject mean for you?
“It fills me with pride and, at the same time,
I feel a great responsibility. We are lucky to
have the will and the professionalism of the
colleagues who coordinated all the work in
Spain. The customer was very pleased with
the speed at which the caissons were built.”
What are the first steps for transferring
these caissons to Açú?
“Tug vessels are used to transfer the floating
caissons from the Rio de Janeiro harbour to
Açú. Other possibilities were considered at
first but the harbour in Rio de Janeiro was
finally chosen because of its depth of the
Guanabara Bay which allows manoeuvring
of the caissons and because the custom
authorities have to receive the merchandise
at that location. That is, there is a customs
authority in Rio and, besides, it is the nearest
harbour to Açú that met with these condi-
tions. “
Can you describe how the transfer was
made?
“The transfer was made in two separate sta-
ges. Firstly, five of the caissons were trans-
ferred in the semi-submergible vessel “Black
Marlin” and later, another semi-submergible
vessel transferred the other four caissons.
These caissons will be used to protect the
installation of the Mar de Aneto and Mar
de Enol floating docks for manufacturing
the remaining caissons required for the Açú
project. It is important to point out that this
involves not only the technical difficulties of
loading the caissons in the semi-submergi-
ble vessel, but also the legal problems for
this type of operation in Brazil. Brazil is an
impressive country, however, it is extremely
bureaucratic and protectionist. We obviously
had to import into Brazil a good that was
manufactured in Spain. Brazilian laws are
very protective of its economy and it is very
complicated to import goods. Just to have
an idea of these complications, we had to
import our Acanto barge and classified it as
a dredger since Brazilian authorities permit
the import of dredgers but not of barges.”
How many days did it take before they
arrived?
“It took seventeen days to cross the Atlan-
tic from the Algeciras Harbour to Buanabara
Bay in Rio de Janeiro. “
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