The construction of the 18 km Fehmarnbelt tunnel - between Rødbyhavn on Lolland and Puttgarden on the island of Fehmarn - formally began at the beginning of 2021 east of Rødbyhavn. The tunnel will comprise 79 elements (217 m wide and 73,500-t weight each) and 10 special concrete elements of 39 m each, currently under production at a special facility in Rødbyhavn on Lolland, the largest construction site in Northern Europe. At present, four standard elements  have been produced at the tunnel element factory. On 17 June,  His Majesty King Frederik X of Denmark officially inaugurated  the first tunnel element to be submerged on the Danish side later this year and forming the first 217 m of the tunnel between Denmark and Germany. 

On 4 July, in Rødbyhavn,  the main contractor, Femern Link Contractors, FLC, named a crucially important purpose-built marine vessel. The vessel must establish a uniform layer of gravel and stone in the excavated tunnel channel before the tunnel elements are subsequently lowered. The vessel will carry out advanced technological precision work up to 40 m below the sea surface, and all stones and pieces of gravel will be placed with centimetre accuracy on an 18 km stretch. 

The 130 m long and 48 m wide vessel has been named Maya and it's a Multi Purpose Pontoon. Maya - built for FLC at the Crist shipyard in Poland -  is equipped with a gigantic underwater tool  which via remote control and other advanced technology is lowered to the seabed to place stones and gravel so precisely that it results in a uniform bed, on which the tonne-heavy tunnel elements can subsequently be placed on top. After this, another special vessel will place another layer of gravel and stone on top of the 18 km long tunnel.

Click here, dk/14 and de/167 for more detailed information in the tunnelbuilder archive. Visit https://femern.com and https://sundogbaelt.dk.  29/24