Marine construction and piling
Marine construction and piling has been Currie Brothers Ltd specialist area for over 20 years. We have worked on a number of piers throughout Orkney and carried out work in Shetland, the Western Isles and the North of Scotland. These works have included piling, steel fixing, placing of concrete both precast and in situ.
We have our own squads of men specialised in piling, shuttering, steel fixing and concrete finishing who, along with our plant operators, can see the contract through from start to finish.
We have various piling hammers including a Hydraulic BSP357 and an air hammer, which are suitable for sheet piling walls and cofferdams or for tube piles of various lengths and diameters for structural works.
We have just completed a piling project at Lyness in Hoy and are currently working on a piling project in Lerwick in Shetland.
We are currently replacing the deck of Lyness pier with a new concrete surface along with services and lighting for future marine renewable projects coming to Orkney.
We are also carrying out an eighteen month contract renewing several slipways for island ferries. This work involves making precast units in our yard and transporting them to the various islands before placing them into the slipway.
Case Study
Lyness Harbour Redevelopment
During the Second World War Lyness was a very busy place with a fuelling base for the British Fleet when in Scapa Flow and thousands of troops stationed there. Since then it has been fairly quiet and in the intervening 60 years the pier has decayed to an extent that it was limited to its use.
Recently Lyness has been given a new lease of life with the prospect of the marine renewable industry. Currently we are nearing completion of a £3million upgrade of the piers and surrounding area to once again put Lyness on the map.
Works in Lyness include a new reinforced concrete slab over the existing deck, sheet and tube piles driven into seabed to create a new heavy lift deck area, services to the pier area including water, power and lighting. A hardstand area of 10000sqm was also created with security fencing for the first marine renewables user at Lyness. These works open up over 240m of deepwater berth.
Many of the existing features from the original pier remain buried under the new concrete as a time capsule to events of the 1940's.
Case Study
The Wick River Pier
Over the last few years Currie Brothers has been the main contractor on several major pier development projects, both in Orkney and across the North of Scotland. One of the largest and most significant of these projects was the £3.5 million redevelopment at Wick Harbour.
Our client was the Harbour Trust and The Highland Council; the project involved an extension to the pier and rock armour defences including the placing of sheet piles and rock armour. The project was particularly well suited to the company due to the combination of our being able to supply much of the heavy plant needed to carry out the works and providing key personnel with appropriate project experience and management skills, having previously been involved with many similar challenging projects.
One of the key challenges was being able to work on the project in what were at times particularly challenging weather conditions, as the picture above demonstrates.
Apart from the weather, the challenging work involved us:
- Piling a 120m run of the existing pier, using a mix of both tube and sheet;
- Forming a new heavy lift platform and
- Importing 10,000 tonne of rock armour from Norway to provide additional shelter, together with 3,500 tonne of reinforced concrete.
We are pleased to say that we rose to the different challenges and the project was delivered on time!