IN NUMBERS Europe’s biggest floating caisson dock builds quays and docks in record time while lowering costs and environmental impact. THE COLOSSAL PORT BUILDER KUGIRA KUGIRA SUMMED UP IN 5 KEY POINTS 4 1 5 3 2 HERE’S HOW IT WORKS It builds reinforced concrete caissons that are anchored to the seabed to construct docks and quays. Kugira means “whale” in Japanese. It’s a floating caisson dock owned by ACCIONA that’s used to build quays and docks for port expansion and new construction projects. It’s literally both a boat and a mobile factory that is towed by sea to wherever its services are required. The company has three vessels of this sort. Since the work is done in the water, there’s barely any interference with a port’s economic activity. It reduces noise, pollution, the risk of accidents, and the environmental impact on marine flora and fauna. It also cuts raw material resource requirements by up to 50%. It can build a new dock in up to 1/4 of the time it would take using conventional construction systems. To date, it has completed almost 200 caissons for 16 different projects. Together, they add up to over 1 million cubic meters of concrete and 11 kilometers of new structures. The largest caisson delivered so far is that of Algeciras, which weighs 14,000 tons and is 67 meters long, 24 meters wide, and 34 meters high. It was built in just 12 days by some 200 people working shifts round the clock. At that pace, under normal conditions Kugira could build a 200-meter seawall or wharf from scratch in just one month. It can also build caissons in one port to be transported to another, as was the case with the 6 caissons (60 meters long, 24 wide, 56 high, and 15,000 tons each) built this year in A Coruña to be sent on to Southeast Asia.