The Berbice Bridge Company Incorporated (BBCI) yesterday commissioned a $177M jack-up barge which is designed to facilitate the changing of pontoons that are keeping the bridge afloat.
The jack-up barge with auxiliary units was described as a workable solution for the removal and replacement of the majority of the pontoons from under the bridge. According to BBCI reps, the current pontoons have been keeping the bridge afloat for eight years and it is time for them to be changed as a part of their maintenance schedule.
The bridge company is set to start replacing the pontoons sometime between November 2015 and January 2016. At the simple commissioning ceremony held at the BBCI headquarters in Berbice, Jerry Gouveia, contractor of Industrial Fabrication Incorporated delivered a detailed presentation on how the barge is intended to be used.
He explained that a team of six persons including himself and engineer Egbert Carter, who is also the Chairman of the BBCI, looked at several different models for the barge and chose a seven-unit unifloat design. The unifloat barge with auxiliary units is able to uphold two hundred tonnes of weight with the support from the other pontoons.
Gouveia related that the jack-up barge would be assembled in the river after which it would be floated under a span, adjacent to the pontoon that needs to be removed. He said that four jacks will be activated to lift the spans at a calculated height based on the tide. Gouveia explained further that when the span is jacked up, they would move the pontoon to a dry area where it would be inspected and serviced. In the meantime, another pontoon would be
