Dredges

self-propelled and non-self-propelled vessels used for the excavation and removal of bottom materials in waterways, moorages, water areas within and outside of harbors, and during other hydraulic-engineering operations for the purpose of increasing depth or maintaining the required depth. Dredges are often subsumed under the general term “technical fleet.”

Types of dredges include soil dredges, dump scows, unloading scows, rock dredges (rock crushers), and root-stump extractors. Dredges are classified according to the excavation method as bucket dredges (single-bucket and multibucket) and as suction dredges; according to their method of transporting the materials to the stowage area, they are classified as hopper dredges, barge-loading dredges (which unload the materials into dump scows), and pipeline dredges (which remove the soil in the form of pulp through a pipe). The dredges and their auxiliary vessels and equipment (tugboats, sounding boats, and floating shore pipeline) that carry out the dredging operations in a particular area are referred to collectively as a dredging caravan.