Fixing up a casualty of war

IHC Parts & Services Europe renovates severely damaged Beaver dredger

The explosion
During the night of Saturday 10 October 2009, a three-year-old IHC Beaver® 6522C, with the rather unimaginative name of M30, was calmly working through layer after layer of soil in the lively harbour of Wilhelmshaven, Germany. Suddenly, the two crew members saw a dazzling green/white flash and... then nothing. They had been knocked out cold and didn’t even hear the bang or see the fountain of water that alarmed fellow workers in the vicinity. They recovered after some treatment, thankfully without any lasting harm.

The same can’t be said for the ship. It looks as if the cutter head hit a mine dating back to the Second World War, when the port of Wilhelmshaven was not just a lively marine base, but also a favourite target for the Allies. The mine did exactly what its makers intended, blasting the ladder and the front of the dredger out of the water.

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