Port Nelson’s $20m redevelopment of the Nelson Slipway will commence in June.

The slipway designs have been approved, and a new travel lift will be ordered for the project. The goal of this redevelopment is to maintain the Calwell Slipway and create an enhanced slipping operation on the Nelson Slipway site, resulting in a modern marine maintenance facility that allows the lifting of vessels in the range of 50 to 2400 tonnes between both slipways.

The new travel lift, confirmed to be a Cimolai Tavel lift, will be available at the facility. Colin Devenish, Port Nelson’s General Manger Environment, Infrastructure and Maintenance, says the flexibility of a travel lift allows the slipway to lift and shift a wider range of vessels, “the travel lift will lift vessels up to 550 tonnes. This hoist will give the operation greater flexibility and will provide the benefit of being able to lift and store multiple vessels onto our hardstand area.” The new hardstand area will be aproximately 7,000m2 of reinforced concrete with multiple parking layouts and locations.

The redevelopment will also improve catchment of contaminated materials and stormwater. The new facility will include an upgrade to the existing treatment facility at the Calwell slipway for waste from vessel cleaning operations. During construction, contaminated silts will be removed from the harbour basin adjacent to the slipways, a similar process used during the Calwell Slipway Remediation project completed in 2018.

Mr Devenish expressed excitement to finally commence construction after delays due to COVID, “the new facility will provide modern slipping facilities and provide major benefits to the local marine engineering community.