Work to install a new mooring point at the southern end of the Overseas Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay began in July 2016.
The new mooring point is required for the safe berthing of the next generation of cruise ships that will come to our shores and accommodate up to 5000 passengers – 1000 more than the largest ship to visit Sydney during the current 2015/16 cruise season.
The first ship to use the new mooring point at the Overseas Passenger Terminal was Ovation of the Seas – which arrived into Sydney on 15 December carrying more than 4900 passengers.
The new mooring point, known as the Southern Mooring, is a land based structure comprising two 150 tonne kidney shaped mooring bollards. Construction was completed in early December 2016, in time for the safe arrival of the Ovation of the Seas on 15 December 2016.
Location
The Southern Mooring Point is located south of the OPT forecourt on land owned by Roads and Maritime Services and Property NSW (formerly SHFA). Port Authority holds a license to use the area with both landowners.
The Southern Mooring point is actually not the most southern mooring point in the OPT mooring set of infrastructure, being located approximately 10m north of the original southern mooring bollards constructed in the 1960s. The original southern bollards remain in use.
Infrastructure detail
The Southern Mooring Point is a land-based piled foundation structure (four 864mm diameter steel piles, filled with reinforced concrete) with a 5.0m x 4.5m x 1.5m (length, width, depth) reinforced concrete pile cap. The foundation structure straddles over existing sheet pile wall tieback anchors and has been designed to be structurally independent of the existing sheet pile wall.
Two 150 tonne bollards are installed in the pile cap approximately 1.5m back from the face of the existing wharf face. The rating of the bollards, at 150 tonne each, are amongst the strongest bollards on the OPT wharf.
Operational value
Seasonal deployment of the Ovation of the Seas at the OPT is anticipated to be the first of many of the next generation of cruise ships to visit Sydney. Installation of the Southern Mooring Point complements the OPT building upgrade and wharf extension projects, with the new infrastructure together strengthening Sydney’s place as a premier and growing cruise destination in Australia.
