A little over a year since works began, 6,000 submerged columns have been placed on the seabed and over 1.5 million tonnes of gravel have been laid 

Genoa, July 15 2024 – In the Vado Ligure construction sites works continue non-stop to build the New Genoa breakwater, with the laying of third caisson to be placed on seabed off the city, expected by the end of July. Creating a caisson is a complex procedure, which n this phase, requires, on average, 20 days.

Building these mega-blocks that will make up the work is just one of the many activities that the PerGenova Breakwater Consortium is carrying out on many fronts, non-stop, led by Webuild, as it wants to complete the work by November 2026. By the end of 2024, a further 10 caissons will be laid, including the one that will be laid at the end of this month, therefore reaching a total of 12 caissons.

To the build the new breakwater the consortium is working with innovative techniques on a technological, safety and sustainability level. It does so, to successfully and promptly meet the challenges posed by the project, also by collaborating with the authorities: challenges that could be of the operational, weather-related type, as the construction site is at sea, but also of the geological type related to the seabed; but also, logistic ones, to ensure that all operators have the best usage conditions of the internal space within the breakwater.  

The caisson that is being prepared, is the third one of the overall 90 that will make up the first 4km of the total 6km of the work. It has been constructed on the floating construction sites that have been set up in the port of Vado Ligure. It measures 21.7 metres in height, 40 metres in length and 25 metres in width, weighing 10,000 tonnes. These huge reinforced concrete caissons are as tall as buildings. They will be laid one next to the other upon the submerged base to give a shape to the breakwater.

Concomitantly to preparing to submerge the next mega blocks, the Consortium is also continuing to lay gravel to consolidate the breakwater's foundations. As of today, over 1.5 million tonnes of gravel have been laid, in fact, and approximately 6,000 submerged columns have been built. For this specific activity, there has been a strengthening of the machinery used, with the use of large barge, which with the pontoon that is already at work will triplicate production. 

Works on the protection barrier of the Vado Ligure construction site continue, which is made of 5 caissons, one next to each other, but smaller compared to the ones that will instead be a part of the main breakwater.  Unexploded ordnance activities in deep seawater continue too, in parallel. The construction site uses specific cutting-edge solutions that respect the sea ecosystem. 

The breakwater is a very important work part of the infrastructural investment plans that will allow the city to become a great logistic hub for European trade. In fact, the work will allow ships up to 400 metres to enter the Port of Genoa. The project is being built in a consortium led by Webuild (40%), with Fincantieri Infrastructure (25%), Fincosit (25%), and Sidra (10%). It involves as of today, 230 workers, both direct and third-party ones, and it will in total engage approximately 1,000 people and over 130 supply chain companies have been engaged since works started.