Jan De Nul ships prepare in Zeebrugge for assignment in the Netherlands

Three cable ships belonging to the Flemish dredging company Jan De Nul are docked at the port of Zeebrugge. These vessels, which install cables that bring renewable energy from wind farms ashore, are preparing for an assignment off the Dutch coast.

The cable-laying vessels Connector and Isaac Newton and the offshore support vessel Symphony are currently in Zeebrugge. "It is rare for us to have three vessels from the same industry side by side," said Benjamin Foubert, cable works operations manager at Jan De Nul. "The Isaac Newton and the Symphony are in full preparation for the Hollandse Kust Noord and West Alfa projects."

The Isaac Newton vessel will lay the cables on the seabed and Symphony will bury them. The project should be completed by June. "Then we will have laid a total of four cables, accounting for 210km of cable. We have brought the last 60km of cable with us from Korea and will start laying them on Monday," Foubert said.

As well as Belgium and the Netherlands, Jan De Nul is currently working on a project in Taiwan and will start laying its first major cable network in the United States this summer. "We need to cable an entire wind farm there. For that, we are also deploying the Isaac Newton and the Symphony," said Foubert.

^{#FlandersNewsService | BELGA PHOTO MAAIKE TIJSSENS}