As large as an 11-story building, 67 meters long, 30 meters wide, and 33 meters high, it will be completed by the middle of next week and transported from Vado by the maxi-barge Tronds Barge 33: 110 meters long and 45 meters wide.
Vado Ligure (Savona) – The first mega-caisson for the new Genoa breakwater has arrived. Standing 33 meters high, 30 meters wide, and 67 meters long, as large as an 11-story building, it will be completed by the middle of next week at the Vado Ligure construction site to then be transported to Genoa and positioned, weather permitting, on October 16 along the ridge of the new breakwater.
The new mega-caisson will join the 12 standard ones, already positioned out of the total of about 90 planned, and simultaneously, the activities for the reclamation and consolidation of the seabed on which the structure must rest are proceeding: to date, over 2.2 million tons of gravel have been laid and almost 45,000 submerged columns have been built, equivalent to more than 520,000 linear meters, more than half of the total length planned by the project, which involves the parallel construction of phases A and B, initially thought of in sequence, and completion in December 2027.
This morning, the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Edoardo Rixi, visited together with the Special Commissioner and President of the Liguria Region Marco Bucci, the sub-commissioners Carlo De Simone and Ugo Ballerini, and the President of the Adsp of the Western Ligurian Sea Matteo Paroli, both the ongoing works off the port of Genoa where a part of the breakwater emerges from the water, witnessing the seabed consolidation work with the gravel columns, and the Vado Ligure construction site where the caissons are being built on board the maxi barge “Tronds barge 33”, capable of submerging up to 20 meters, equipped with 7 cranes and an on-site concrete batching system.
“This is a project worth at least a hundred years of development,” said Rixi in response to a question about the project’s timelines – “One month more or less is not the problem: Here I believe that finally in recent months all the problems that every major project entails have been resolved.” Bucci was also optimistic: “It is clear that the road remains long but I am confident. The technical problems are being resolved brilliantly.” Paroli was also positive about the construction timelines. “The progression of the work confirms the respect of the schedule and shows how two ports belonging to a single system can collaborate and support each other in development.”
Built by the PerGenova Breakwater consortium led by Webuild on behalf of the Port System Authority of the Western Ligurian Sea, the new breakwater of the port of Genoa in its final configuration will extend for 6.2 kilometers and will allow the entry of new generation ships up to 400 meters long, in addition to protecting the city from storm surges.
