Brodosplit to participate in big project saving Venice

28 May 2014

Currently, the sea floods Venice about 50 times per year, mostly in autumn and winter months, and the entire City gets flooded each five years.

Italian architectural-construction consortium chose Split Shipyard on this tender because of experience and expert knowledges of its shipbuilders. The authority and trust that Brodosplit experts enjoy among its many clients are a result of many years of successful work and high quality of various production assortment.

Images by Brodosplit Shipyard Ltd.

Brodosplit will deliver 21 steel floodgates, 29 x 24 meters, 6 meters thick and weighing 300 tons. Three floodgates at a time will be delivered by sea route directly to the mouth where they will be installed, time of delivery is 60-90 days. Floodgates are designed as special tanks filled with air or water. When filled with water the floodgates will sink to the bottom of the sea, when filled with air they will rise toward the sea surface and close lagoon inlets. After the air is pumped out, they will be filled with water again and lain at the sea bottom.

It is planned that three canals leading to the Venetian Lagoon are to be closed prior to the tide coming from the open sea. They are Mouths of Lido, Malamocco and Chioggia, and project envisages instalment of 80 floodgates with 50 years lifecycle. The project is an integrated protection system consisting of mobile floodgates capable of separating the Venetian Lagoon from the Adriatic Sea in cases of tide higher than the established level (110 cm) up to the maximum of three meters. During this several hours the Venetian Lagoon would be closed for the ship traffic.

The project of saving Venice from sinking is called MOSE (ital. Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico), and the title itself can be an association to eh Old Testament and Moses who divided the Red Sea.

Brodosplit is extremely proud of this Contract because we won it on international tender among very high competitors – shipbuilders and steel construction manufacturers. It will remain forever listed as one of the companies that participated in one of the biggest Italian construction projects ever, worth more than 7 billion euros and contributing to saving Venice from problems caused by tide, Tomislav Debeljak, Brodosplit Chief Executive Officer, pointed out.

Brodosplit Shipyard Ltd. press release