The Fehmarn Belt is one of the busiest waterways in Europe. Around 40,000 ships annually pass south of Lolland and north of Fehmarn on the way from the Baltic Sea, before the trip continues up through the Danish belts. At the same time, Scandlines’ Bird Flight line commutes between Rødby and Puttgarden approximately 35,000 times a year.
Coordination and cooperation
When, at the same time, the last part of the excavation for the world’s longest submersible tunnel is being carried out at the same place, there is not much that has to go wrong before the accident occurs. Therefore, coordination and cooperation between Femern A/S, the contractor consortia and Scandlines is paramount.
– All movements in and out of Rødbyhavn are reported to our tower so that we don’t get in each other’s way, says Michael Guldmann Petersen, operations manager for Scandlines, over a cup of ferry coffee between Rødby and Puttgarden.
Now only meet every three weeks
In the beginning, there were coordination meetings between the tunnel and ferry people once a week, but it is now down to every three weeks. And those meetings are in reality mostly courtesy and coffee visits, because the cooperation on the water works without friction:
– After all, it is a matter of complying with the international shipping rules and perfectly regular, good seamen, and they (Femern Belt Contractors, who are responsible for the excavation work at sea, ed.) are very professional – and so are we, says Michael Guldmann Petersen.
Large sea hose pumps the seabed
Up from the command bridge on Scandlines’ hybrid ferry Prinsesse Benedikte, FemernReport can see for itself that the tunnel work and the ferry route are really close neighbours. Captain Michael Skeller Andersen points out what looks like a very large, dark sea snake floating around on the surface a few kilometers off Rødbyhavn:
– It is the hose through which they pump sand from the seabed to land. They can’t sail all the way to the coast and unload, explains the captain.
Work areas programmed in
All work areas are programmed into the ferry’s navigation systems. At the same time, it has been agreed that the work vessels from the tunnel construction never cross over the ferries’ sailing route. In this way, dangerous situations are avoided:
– We have actually also changed the sailing route a little bit so that we don’t get too close. This makes the trip a little bit longer, but we compensate for that by sailing a little faster, says operations manager Michael Guldmann Petersen.
