The Dutch National Museum of Dredging (Sliedrecht) is unique and exhibits a collection of historical and modern models of dredgers and dredging equipment, photographs and dredged items of all sorts. The roots of the Dutch Dredging industry, that brought forth the world market leaders Boskalis and Van Oord, lie in the town of Sliedrecht, where both Mr Bos and Mr Kalis once lived. In fact, the Museum is the original home of the Volker family, the first dredging majors.
The Museum operates solely on its volunteers, subscribers and subsidy donors. Much of the maintenance work has to be done outside as the Museum possess several large machines, such as an original steam powered dredge. Because of the ice and snow in the past days, Damen decided to supply the maintenance crew and their colleagues with some warm clothing.
Damen Dredging builds cutter dredgers, hopper dredgers, DOP pumps and other dredging equipment. A recent innovation is the RoRo Deep Dredge, a flexible offshore dredging and mining system that can be mounted on almost any vessel-type and is able to work in water depths up to 200 m.
Damen is a family-owned company and has always been involved in local projects relating to shipbuilding and projects relevant to the local community. As such, Damen sponsors events, publications and organisations worldwide, notably Nederlands Dans Theater, the worldwide renowned Dutch modern dance company, and of course several maritime institutions.
Photo: Frank Koppelaar, Director Damen Pontoons & Barges, presents a fleece-vest to the volunteers of the Dutch National Museum of Dredging