The ‘Maria Vittoria Z’, a hopper dredger with navigation notation UNRESTRICTED, is designed for underwater excavation works and seabed dredging. This vessel is equipped with the first example of Liebherr HS 8300, the largest lattice boom crane ever designed and installed on a boat by the Swiss company Liebherr (one of the world leading equipment manufacturer).
The newborn ship at Vittoria Shipyard has an 84,20m-long mono-hull, a 19m beam, with a full load displacement of 7,400t, and can reach a speed of 11k. The boat guarantees the navigability of sea and river routes, lakes, canals and ports at silting up risk by leveling, decreasing or increasing the depth of the sea bottom.
The technical characteristics are studied specifically to support the Liebherr HS 8300, a lifting machine with a payload of 300t, a 41m-long arm, a grapple bucket with 10m³ capacity and a 30m³ capacity clamshell hydraulic bucket. The crane is employed to pick up sand, clay, silt, gravel and small rocks, from the sea bottom, lifting them and positioning the material inside the load compartment. The latter is equipped on the bottom with horizontal openable hatches to unload the material where necessary, for instance, to construct new lands or expand and strengthen the existing ones or to replace the sand eroded by storms or waves’ action on the seashore, restoring the original shape. The vessel is also geared for the installation of different dredging technologies, such as the trailing suction pipe system.