Construction of a shipping canal through the Vistula Spit

On 18 October 2019, the Maritime Office in Gdynia handed over to the General Contractor – a consortium of NDI SA / NDI SOPOT SA and Besix N.V., the area where works were carried out as part of the first stage of construction of the fairway connecting the Vistula Lagoon with the Bay of Gdańsk. The contract took 35 months to complete.

The investment project included the construction of a breakwayer bay from the side of the Bay of Gdańsk, the construction of a shipping canal with a sluice and a lock structure along with waiting stations on the side of the Bay of Gdańsk and the Vistula Lagoon, a new road system with movable steel bridges with a vertical axis of rotation, which enable passage over the canal upstream the sluice and downstream the sluice; construction of an artificial island located on the Vistula Lagoon.

The shipping canal is 1.5 km long and 5 meters deep.

The investment project is located within two voivodeships – Pomorskie and Warmińsko-Mazurskie. Within the borders of Pomorskie Voivodeship, in the communes of Sztutowo and Krynica Morska, a part of the project is located, which covers the construction of a shipping canal through the Vistula Spit, the construction of a fairway in the northern part of the Vistula Lagoon (the voivodeship border runs through the middle of the Vistula Lagoon) and the construction of an artificial island.

Within the borders of the Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship, in the Tolkmicko commune, the southern part of the fairway on the Vistula Lagoon is located, and within the borders of the Elbląg commune and the city of Elbląg – the fairway on the Elbląg River with adjacent land areas.

Video summary of the first stage of the construction of the Shipping Canal

3,000,000 m3 of earthworks were carried out at the construction site.

Over 10,000 pieces of prefabricated elements, the so-called X-blocks, were used.

400,000 tons of stone riprap made on breakwaters.

1,526 m – total length of the Shipping Canal.

Technical depth – 5 meters.

Permissible depth is 6.5 meters.