Client : Curtain Brothers
Location : Townsville, Australia
Year : 2005

Madsen Giersing was engaged by Curtain Brothers to design the upgrade and expansion of the Ross Haven Marine facility in Townsville. The expanded facility incorporates three finger piers forming two ship lifter bays, one for an existing ship lifter and one for the 180 tonne ship lifter, located side by side with the central finger pier being shared by both ship lifters.

Works included widening and strengthening of an existing finger pier approximately 25m long; a new finger pier approximately 36m long by 2.5m wide and a new retaining wall to allow the pocket between the finger piers to be dredged.

The expanded and new finger piers consist of precast, prestressed concrete deck units spanning between insitu concrete headstocks supported by steel piles. The new retaining wall consists of a steel sheet pile wall anchored using a reinforced concrete capping/waler beam, steel tie rods and precast concrete deadman anchors.

Madsen Giersing also provided site support during the construction phase including assessing the driven pile capacities.

Madsen Giersing was also engaged to design the required modifications to an existing 180 tonne ship lifter. The existing ship lifter was 10m high and 12m wide and had four fixed lifting points.

Madsen Giersing designed the 2.5m height and width extensions to the ship lifter. In addition to this, two of the lifting points were modified to allow the load to move along the length of the ship lifter, enabling various sized vessels to be lifted.

Madsen Giersing also designed and detailed new lifting points incorporating hydraulic rams to allow for the required movement.