How Aeromarine designed and built a custom underwater bubble curtain system for Boskalis Australia’s Dampier Cargo Wharf Extension — 680 metres of drilled air hose, chain-weighted and rigged to spec — and had it on a ship to Western Australia inside a week, right first time.
CLIENT
Boskalis Australia Pty Ltd
PROJECT
Dampier Cargo Wharf Extension, Western Australia
SCOPE
Custom underwater bubble curtain — 680m drilled air hose, chain-weighted
TURNAROUND
PO placed 7 Oct 2024 — container moving to port 8 Oct 2024
THE CHALLENGE
Boskalis Australia needed an underwater bubble curtain for its Dampier Cargo Wharf Extension project — a system that had never come out of Aeromarine’s yard before. Built correctly, a bubble curtain is deceptively simple and unforgiving of error: air hose drilled at a precise 250mm interval along its length, weighted evenly with chain so it sits on the seabed instead of floating, and rigged with the right fittings, valves and anchors to hold its shape under water. Get the drilling, the weighting or the fittings wrong and the curtain doesn’t work. Boskalis needed it engineered to spec, built once, and on a vessel to Western Australia without delay.
WHAT AEROMARINE DID
- Fabricated 680 metres of air hose to the bubble-curtain spec — 120m of 3″ hose at 20 bar and 560m of 2″ hose at 40 bar — every hose end crimped with BSP female swivel nut connections.
- Drilled the 2″ hose runs at a precise 250mm interval along their full length, the detail that turns a length of air hose into a working bubble curtain.
- Fixed 400 metres of anchor chain to the hose at 6kg per metre, so the curtain would sit and hold on the seabed instead of floating out of position.
- Built and supplied the full rigging package to match: MS pipe clamps and screwed unions, tee pieces, gunmetal check valves, whip-check safety cables, 2-tonne and 6.5-tonne shackles, hose-end blind caps, 4 Polyform A4 marker buoys and 4 concrete-and-steel sinkers.
- Spooled, wrapped and containerised the entire system in-house, and had it moving to Nhava Sheva the day after the purchase order was placed — first attempt, right first time, no rework.
Built and shipped: 680m of drilled air hose (120m × 3″ + 560m × 2″) · 400m of chain fixed at 6kg/m · full rigging package including buoys, sinkers, shackles and check valves · quoted and ordered 7 Oct 2024, on a truck to Nhava Sheva 8 Oct 2024.
THE OUTCOME
A complete underwater bubble curtain system — 680 metres of drilled, chain-weighted air hose plus its full rigging package — engineered, built and containerised by Aeromarine and shipped from Nhava Sheva to Dampier, Western Australia, inside a week of the purchase order landing. First time out on this product, built right in one go.
WHY IT MATTERS
A bubble curtain isn’t a stock item — it’s built to the metre and the millimetre, and there’s no partial credit for getting the drilling pattern or the chain weighting close. Boskalis Australia gave Aeromarine a first-of-its-kind order against a live wharf extension programme, and it went out the door correct on the first build, moving to port within a day of the PO. That’s the kind of order that turns into the next one.
The finished fleet, staged on the quay before shipment
