Video: Roof Wetting Ceremony At King’s Wharf
The traditional roof wetting ceremony for the recently refurbished King’s Wharf at the Royal Naval Dockyard was held yesterday [Aug 14].
Minister of Public Works Lt/Col David Burch said, “Good afternoon and welcome to the recently refurbished King’s Wharf at the Royal Naval Dockyard – one of two deep water cruise berths.
“Before we get to the principal reason for being here – a bit of history is in order. It was November 17th, 2018 that we began the demolition of the previous terminal and the entire dock.
The 7-minute live video replay is below:
“Following a comprehensive inspection in 2014 – deck problems were clearly identified and the report at that time estimated a replacement cost of the deck and terminal building at more than $20M.
“It was clear that the deck had deteriorated and needed to be rebuilt during the 2018 off season which ran from November 15th 2018 to April 9th 2019. Planning began immediately to explore options and new methods to meet that limited timeline.
“The Ministry initiated an accelerated replacement program in order to meet the critical deadline of April 10th, 2019 – the arrival of the 1st cruise ship of the season. The consequences of missing that deadline would have incurred a US$500,000 penalty for every visit that a ship could not dock at Kings Wharf.
“We identified Precast Systems, Inc. of New Jersey who had previously supplied 25 concrete slabs to create a temporary pedestrian walkway atop the compromised deck at King’s Wharf earlier. They were selected to build the new dock with concrete slabs and ship it to Bermuda.
“We decided to transport a third of the dock on the weekly cargo vessel and the remaining two thirds of the dock would be transported to Bermuda on a cargo ship chartered specifically for this purpose and unloaded in the Royal Naval Dockyard and stored on Cross Island. This approach would meet the demands of the construction schedule and essentially produce a savings of approximately $400,000.
“A number of other factors were implemented to enhance the construction and expand the life expectancy of the wharf – usually for long term corrosion protection one of the following elements would be included in the design – Fly Ash, Cathodic Protection, Corrosion Inhibitor and Low reactivity aggregates. In this case – they were all used.
“Under this plan the replacement terminal could not be completed by the start of the 2019 cruise ship season – so a temporary structure – directly behind us – is being used while construction occurs.
“The 2014 estimate for these works was $20 million but with savings from the reuse of some of the piles and the use of Precast slabs – the revised budget for the pier and the terminal building was set at $15 Million including contingencies.
“That part of this exercise was led by Project Manager, Bermudian Civil Engineer Ms. Carmen Trott and a team from the Ministry ably supervised by the Chief Engineer Mr. Yves [Bob] Lortie.
“Overnight Construction are building the new terminal and were also in charge of the finish work on the dock. Wedco General Manager Mr. Andrew Dias and Port Facilities Manager, Mrs. Carmen Tucker are the project managers for the building phase.
“I must repeat that this aspect of the rebuild is Phase 1 – the next phase – the costing of which has not yet been finalized, is to provide for the extension of the dock by 100 ft. on either side of the Terminal building to accommodate larger ships with 4 gangways and provide a better service area for grey water, sewage and garbage disposal.
“With that background – now let’s get to the primary reason for today – the traditional Bermuda roof wetting with Black Rum.”
LOL. “Rumming before or Rumming after”