The Dredger - Glenn Edwards

The type of support vessels that come next in line to the Tugs in my "List if favotrite vessels" are the Dredgers. Pictured above is the Dredger Glenn Edwards, pictured above at the mouth of the Pascagouls Ship Channel in the Mississippi state. The Glenn Edwards was waiting for us to pass so that they could continue with their dredging works.

Glenn Edwards is a relatively new ship, floated in 2006 near here in Mobile Alabama. You can see a very informative article about it here at the workboat.com website. In it we are told of the extremely high standards of specifications that the vessel is built to.

The method of operation of dredgers like the Glenn Edwards are simple in principle. The boom that you see on the sides lower to the sea bed and act like a gaint Vaccume Cleaner, sucking in all manners of mud, small rocks and debries. These are deposited in the middle of the ship in their hold, from where the water is simply drained out. The dredger then makes its way to the dumping ground, where the bottom of the hold simply opens out, letting the whole of the load simply drop down.

Because the US coast is blessed with deep rivers and waterways, it is hard to spot too many of these vessels around here, but at the mouth of the Mississippi and in the channels of the US Gulf coast, these chaps keep digging away to allow people like us transit without too much heartburn.