Moray Council announced today that the 160ft Manu Pekka dredger barge is expected to berth at Buckie harbor on Sunday.
The dredger and 88ft BKM 103 multicat tug will spend two to three weeks in Buckie while general maintenance work is carried out and new equipment is fitted before beginning work in the Moray Firth.
There they will spend around three months excavating a subsea trench which will carry transmission cabling from the site of the Beatrice windfarm 35 miles offshore from Buckie.
The power cables will make landfall to the west of Portgordon from where they will be connected to the new electricity substation currently under construction at Blackhillock, near Keith.
The Manu Pekka, a so-called backhoe dredger, is one of the largest dredging machine in its class. The crane’s total weight exceeds 100 tonnes and its design is based on a hydraulic excavator used in the mining sector.
The dredger is in fact a pontoon, equipped with three spuds to solidly anchor the ship.
[mappress mapid=”24082″]