Second wreck removed from Demerara River – Minister Edghill

Jan 25, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill via a Facebook post yesterday noted that a second shipwreck has been removed from the Demerara River by Dutch Company, Koole Contractors.
The company is being paid a total of $787.6 million by the government to remove three shipwrecks from the river in order to complement the construction of a new four-lane Harbour Bridge.
Koole Contractors signed the agreement with the government on September 5, last year and its Project Manager, Marc Rooijakkers had noted that all three wrecks would have been removed in two to three months’ time.
The three wrecks that the company was contracted to remove are, Dar B, Allana III and Miss Elissa.
So far, only two of these vessels have been removed and it shouldn’t take the company much time to remove the third, this publication was informed.
The contractor is using the chisel method to remove the wrecks which is simply hoisting a 17.5 tonne steel plate by a crane about 22 metres high in the air then allowing it to free fall into the water to break a vessel into small sections.
A grapple is then used to remove the break up pieces bit by bit from the water. However, before the company could have started doing this it had to orient itself with the area first.
MARAD’s Harbour Master, Glanford Archer, had state that Guyana had tried to remove the three vessels in the past but these efforts were unsuccessful.