My visit to a unique kind of ship

A dredger is an amazing ship. When canals and smaller water bodies get filled with sand, ships get stuck in them. Dredgers are large ships that clear out the sand, making it easy for ships to pass through.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to explore a real dredger! So here’s what my experience was like.

When we arrived at the Tuas port, Captain Venkat gave my mom, dad and me our passes. We also got some helmets as we were going to be climbing around the dredger.

Once we were ready, we went across the port and towards the dredger. On the way, I was thrilled to see a large ship docked on land. You could see the bottom of the ship, which was like a colossal red float. Captain Venkat told us how the ship was brought onto the dock.

Below the floor of the dock are huge floats that are filled with air. First, the sailors fill those with water to make them sink. The floor moves down and seawater automatically floods in. The ship can now sail in. Then, the water is pumped out of the floats and air pumped in. and the floor moves up. The ship is now on dry land!

I thought it was really cool how they got the ship onto dry land.

Finally, we reached the dredger. It was pure white with Volvox Asia printed in on one side.

When we first boarded the dredger, we went to the bridge. The bridge is basically the control room. Captain Venkat showed us the different buttons and levers used to move forward, backward and turn the ship around.

Once we were done at the bridge, we went to the mess, which is where the sailors eat, just like in stories!

Next, we went to the gym. As the sailors don’t have much exercise on the ship, they need a gym. The gym was actually pretty large and had a lot of training facilities.

Finally, we saw the most important part of any dredger. The hopper! The hopper is a gigantic tank connected to many long pipes. 

Like I said before, dredgers clear sand from water bodies. The pipes scoop up the sand, which enters the hopper and is stored there. When the dredger reaches a larger water body, the hopper is opened and the sand is dumped there. It all sounded so incredible!

I had an amazing experience at the dredger, and hope that I can visit a ship again someday.