We have been hard at work near Portsmouth working with a large international dredging contractor at the Southsea beach replenishment project. This is part of a large-scale coastal defence project which is adding approximately one million tonnes of new shingle to the beach between October 2025 and March 2026. This will double the beach’s width reducing wave energy and preventing overtopping during storms.

The large amount of required shingle will be dredged locally from the Solent near the Isle of Wight and deposited onto the beach by a pipeline from the dredger. This giant floating pipeline is what is keeping our powerful Damen multi cat vessel Wind Lass busy as it assists with the delivery and installation of two thirds of a kilometre of pipe.

Assisted by our twin-screw tugboat DMS Condor, Wind Lass towed the sections of pipe from Rotterdam to the UK. The first section being a huge 550m long, and the second a more modest but still impressive 120m long! Once on site at Southsea Wind Lass made good use of its two powerful 230tm deck cranes to position and connect the pipelines with further assistance from DMS Condor.

Both vessels have made good use of their shallow draft and high manoeuvrability and have helped get the initial phase of this essential work started on schedule ready for completion in March 2026.

If you have a requirement for marine operations in shallow or near shore projects, please feel free to get in touch to see where we can help.