Hoppers

– Provided with a Tonnage Certificate and a Community Certificate for Inland Navigation
– Modular and easily transportable by road
– Limited dimensions and air draught

General:

Ponton Made BV has a fleet of divisible, certified hopper barges/cargo lighters with Community Certificates for Inland Shipping and Tonnage Certificates.
These so-called hopper barges can be divided into 2 longitudinal hull sections, so that they can be deployed at locations that are not normally accessible by water by means of standard road transport.
The barges can be transported by Ponton Made BV and our skilled employees can professionally launch and connect the barges. The hopper barges are suitable for a wide range of applications and have proven their usefulness in the dredging and road/marine engineering industry. Thanks to their limited dimensions and air draught, our hopper barges were used to transport tunnel segments for the drilling project for the construction of the Noord-Zuid metro line in Amsterdam.

Coupling system:
Single hull sections (SB or BB) are built in such a way that they can be safely accessed once they are on the water.
The second hull section is then connected to the first, already floating hull section with a crane and the two units are connected by means of the bottom hooks. The hoppers are then pulled together with the crane and the connection is secured with a pin on the fore and aft. The seam between the two sections is made watertight with a heavy-duty rubber profile.

Dimensions
The hopper barges have the following dimensions:
Standard type:
Weight when empty : 30 tonnes (15 tonnes per hull section)
length: 17.04 m
Width : 5.24 m (2.62 m per hull section)
Moulded depth: 1.90 m
Draft max.: 1.75 m
Draft min.: 0.47 m
Load capacity: 105 tonnes
Hopper content: 86.6 m3

XL type:
Weight when empty : 32 tonnes (16 tonnes per hull section)
length: 18.04 m
Width : 5.24 m (2.62 m per hull section)
Moulded depth: 1.90 m
Draft max.: 1.75 m
Draft min.: 0.47 m
Load capacity: 112 tonnes
Hopper content: 93.8 m3

Certification:
The hopper barges are all provided with a Community Certificate for Inland Navigation and a tonnage certificate.
They are characterised as cargo lighters and are permitted to enter zone 2 in the Netherlands and zones 3 and 4 within the European Community.