A dragline in the tropics

Located in the Indian Ocean in the Mascarene archipelago, the island of La Réunion is one of the six French DOM (overseas department). In this area close to Madagascar and Mauritius, the port activity of the island is particularly intense. To ensure the maintenance of the port, the local administration (DEAL) decided in late 2010 to issue a tender for the supply of a large ropes material handlers capable of dredging operations and all types of work for bank protection.

This is Sygmat, the French dealer for Sennebogen, who prevails in the supply of a 6180 HD-SL. According to the customer's wishes, the machine comes with three equipments. First, the dragline equipment will ensure the essential activity of the machine with two campaigns per year to dredge the access channel to the harbor entrance. Equipped with a 45m boom and a IEV dragline bucket of 4 cu.yd (3000L), it will extract the alluvial deposits at an average depth of -15m.

Another customer request was the clamshell equipment in order to dredge from a pontoon or from the quay to clean the areas of the mooring boats. For this purpose, the 6180 was delivered with and heavy duty IEV 4000 liters clamshell bucket. And finally, the last equipment is the hoisting crane attachment to handle blocks of stone or concrete between 5 and 50t to protect the banks regularly damaged by the waves during cyclones. One of the others features of the 6180 HD-SL is the CAT C18 diesel engine of 470kW and the two free-fall winches of 320kN pulling force with 36mm diameter ropes. The commissioning of this new machine was completed in December 2011 to the total satisfaction of the Port officials.