Moselle: Müden lock - improvised emergency operation against ship congestion

Only eight days, after a motorised goods vessel loaded with scrap entered the lower gate of the Müden lock, yesterday, 16 December, at least emergency operations could be resumed by the responsible Mosel-Saar-Lahn Waterways and Shipping Authority begin. The aim is to clear the congestion of ships upstream on the Moselle and Saar: At the time of the accident and the resulting closure, there were a total of 74 ships there, six of which were river cruisers.

Necessity is the mother of invention

As the Müden lock, around 35 kilometres upstream of Koblenz, only has a single chamber, these vessels would have been trapped until spring. However, the crisis team set up developed an emergency operation procedure in just a few days to at least give these ships a way out.

To do this, the destroyed gate first had to be removed. In its place, the chamber at the lower head is now closed for each lock with steel barrier elements, so-called dam beams, which are otherwise used for inspection work. A crane lowers them into place, several on top of each other, to form a wall. They have to be lifted out again so that the ship can sail downstream after the lock.

Four hours instead of 30 minutes

The "Allegria" made the start at the Müden lock yesterday. The skipper steered the 80 metre long freighter loaded with malting barley into the chamber extremely carefully and slowly. After around 30 minutes, the underwater section was reached. They had already started to "pull" the dam beams again. After a total of two hours, the first emergency lock was completed. The entire process had taken four hours. The aim is now to enable five to six ships a day to continue their journey to the Rhine in this way.

I am very pleased that our idea with the emergency lock works. Although it is very time-consuming, we are doing everything in our power to resolve the situation," said Eric Oehlmann, Head of the Directorate-General for Waterways and Shipping.

This applies not only to the emergency locks, but also to the repair of the entire lock. According to Oehlmann, the plans for repairing the damage that has occurred are of course continuing in parallel so that the repair work on the Müden lock can be carried out as quickly as possible. However, it is not yet clear when this will be in spring.