The 57m self-propelled sand suction barge Kaipara Karrier VII was launched at Culham Engineering’s Hewlett St site on Tuesday after 18 months of work.
The 57m self-propelled sand suction barge Kaipara Karrier VII was launched at Culham Engineering’s Hewlett St site on Tuesday after 18 months of work.
The capability and skills of Whangārei’s marine tradespeople has been demonstrated with the launch of a 2000-tonne sand barge in Northland.
The Kaipara Karrier VII was built for Atlas Concrete by Culham Engineering and several Whangārei specialist subcontractors over the past 18 months.
The 57m self-propelled sand suction barge was officially launched on Tuesday.
Culham Engineering owner and managing director Rob Kirwan was unable to share commercial details such as the cost of building the ship, but said up to 150 people had worked on the project, including 60 to 70 Culham staff.
“We’ve done a lot of work for them [Atlas Concrete] over the years ... We managed to secure this project based on our quality and ability to do the job,” he said.
“This barge was fantastic to work on and the client is stoked with the outcome, as are we.”
Kirwan is confident the barge would lead to more work for Culham’s 2000 staff, along with Whangārei’s marine subcontractors, which he described as second to none.
“It’s a collaboration with Circa Marine — they were asked if they could do the job, but it was too big for them and we’ve got a great relationship. They suggested we get involved as the main contractor and everyone gets a slice of the pie.”
After the launch of Kaipara Karrier VII, Whangārei District Mayor Vince Cocurullo suggested KiwRail’s Cook Strait ferries also should be built in Whangārei.
Kirwan said there was no doubt Northlanders had the skills to build a Cook Strait car ferry, but the infrastructure for such a big project was not in place yet.
Culham Engineering tradesman Joyson Drilon cuts the chain to officially launch Kaipara Karrier VII with the help of crane and heavy haulage operator Hayden Massey.
“That’s not to say that we couldn’t build one — we would just need to build the infrastructure around it,” he said.
“Pound for pound, I don’t think there’s any other region [in New Zealand] that has the ability to do big projects — we’ve got the resources and the skills.”
“Not having the Brynderwyns as a consistent transport [corridor] is a big struggle. We work closely with Northport to try and bring in as much as we can through them, like steel, but the reality is that a lot of shipping companies won’t commit because of our connectivity.”
Culham Engineering is part of Northland Corproate Group, which commissioned NZIER to investigate the benefits of a four-lane highway between north Auckland and Northland’s Kaikohe.
It found the so-called Northland Expressway would grow Te Tai Tōkerau’s annual GDP by $2.1 billion and national GDP would increase by $1.2b a year.
Kirwan said Northland could not be forgotten about when it came to vital infrastructure and a new road needed to be built now.
He also supports a dry dock at Northport that would enable the most benefit to be made of the deepest port in the country.
Denise Piper is a news reporter for the Northern Advocate, focusing on health and business. She has more than 20 years in journalism and is passionate about covering stories that make a difference.
