HollandMT Thriving in Dredge and Equipment Design

Jan Willem de Wit’s company HollandMT (for Holland Marine Technology) celebrated its fifth year in business in January and was among the exhibitors at WEDA’s 2014 Dredging Summit and Expo in Toronto.

HollandMT began as a concept between three engineering colleagues in 2009 in which they would design dredging equipment and facilitate the construction by working with partner companies to provide the dredging equipment and shipyard services. Through the years de Wit’s colleagues dropped out of the venture and he now runs the engineering office in Woerden Holland as sole owner and managing director.

The 2000-cubic-meter St. Pierre was designed for STFMO to mine sand in the ocean sailing from St. Nazaire France.

The company has two entities. Holland Dredge Systems BV provides products and services from dredge engineering to complete equipment packages for dredges and Holland Dredge Parts BV supplies new and replacements parts for dredges. Holland MT-branded equipment including gate valves bow couplings and more is designed in the Woerden office and fabricated at partner yards mainly in China but also in the Netherlands and Eastern and Southern Europe.

De Wit is the sole owner and general manager. He employs six engineers plus trainees and some temporary contact workers for a total work force of about 10.

In 2010 HollandMT provided services to design and build the St. Pierre a 2000 cubic meter 4160-ton trailing suction hopper dredge for sand mining company Societe de Transports de Fluvio Maritime de l’Ouest (STFMO). Sailing out of St. Nazaire the dredge has a dredging depth of 45 meters (approximately 148 feet) assisted by a dragarm-mounted pump. The dredge was built at shipyard STX Lorient in France and HollandMT supplied the dredging equipment; the dragarm submerged dredge pump unit gantries pipeline unloading system and gate valves bottom doors and rod overflows and integrated the design of the dredging equipment.

The backhoe dredge Bucephalus designed and built for SOMIT s.r.l. in Italy in 2013. It is equipped with a Liebherr 984 crane.

In 2013 HollandMT cooperated with Swedish naval architect FKAB to deliver a 3120-ton dredge to the Kaohsiung Harbour Bureau in Taiwan. The port needed a highly maneuverable dredge suitable for maintenance and small capital dredging projects. The trailing suction hopper dredge was built at Ching Fu Shipyard in Taiwan launched in April 2013 and delivered in the first quarter of 2014. HollandMT designed and integrated the dredging equipment which included the dragarm gantries and winches inboard dredge pump drive including gearbox; all pipeline bow coupling overflow and gate valves; bottom doors and rods de-gassing system instrumentation and jet water system including pump and nozzles.

Also in 2013 the company completed design services for backhoe dredge Bucephalus for SOMIT s.r.l. in Italy in cooperation with FKAB. The dredge is equipped with a Liebherr 984 crane and power is by Cummins KTA19M3 2×447 kW engines.

De Wit has identified a market for a new type of green highly efficient and compact hopper dredge and has begun initial designs.

In March of this year HollandMT introduced the PSD350 — a deep-digging plain suction dredge for lakes estuaries and mining and tailings ponds. Designated the PSD350 the dredge is equipped with a high pressure jet water system and specially designed suction head that is lowered vertically to the bottom from a conventional ladder. It is equipped with a submerged dredge pump on the ladder and a hull pump enabling discharge up to 3000 meters (9843 feet). Digging depth is up to 40 meters (131 feet).