Basque shipyard beats new challenge after launching world’s largest dredger

With its centenary year safely behind it, Sestao’s La Naval shipyard has successfully met a new challenge: building the world’s largest dredger. The Christopher Columbus left for Singapore this week after a trouble-free launch in the river Nervión and delivered to Belgian ship-owner Jan de Nul. Getting the dredger shipshape took more than two years of intense work, during which Basque shipyards demonstrated once again that they have the technology, capacity and the qualified workforce necessary to take on the competition from shipyards in Eastern Europe and Asia (where low costs are the crucial factor) and deliver a product of the highest quality on schedule.