Owned and operated by Central Romana Corporation, Port La Romana is located at the mouth of the Dulce River in the Dominican Republic. This strategic location makes La Romana the gateway to the eastern part of the country, an area that has lately experienced a high growth in cruise tourism.
In 2021, the corporation launched an expansion project to allow berthing of larger vessels and to increase the port’s operational capacity.
Due to this expansion, it was identified that the current fenders, ShibataFenderTeam CSS Cell Fenders, needed to be upgraded to safely accommodate these larger cruise vessels. Contacted again to lead the refurbishment of La Romana, we delivered 11 CSS Cell Fenders (CSS2000, G1.0) with steel panels measuring 3,000-by-3,805 mm and three spare rubber bodies. The order also included four Single-Bit Bollards (200 tonnes) and two T-Head Bollards (200 tonnes).
All teams worked together with the client to deliver a first-class solution. The engineering team worked on a design that would prevent damages from shear forces and added shear chains to the final system. The logistics team was faced with the complicated freight market situation at that moment, being forced to rearrange shipments several times to deliver on time. Additionally, the sales team coordinated with the client which fenders to install first and how, to gradually complete the berthing line, following the very short time windows available between vessels. And finally, one of our sales representatives traveled to Port La Romana to check the delivered goods and provide our client with all necessary technical support.
We would like to thank Central Romana Corporation for their confidence in us and to congratulate them for achieving their growth objective, which was marked by the arrival of the cruise vessel Odyssey of the Seas in November 2022.
Reprinted from Marine Construction Magazine Issue II 2023.
