Port Hercule — la digue semi-flottante
Semi-floating dike of 352 meters and 160,000 tonnes towed to the Principality in 2002, which made it possible to double the reception capacity of Port Hercule.
In 2002, Monaco installed the largest semi-floating breakwater in the world in front of its port: 352 meters long, 160,000 tonnes, towed to the Principality and moored at the foot of the Rock.
A work, not an embankment
The technique distinguishes this dike from a simple embankment: it is semi-floating, held by a ball joint on the Rock side and eight anchor lines, and operates on the principle of the “fixed wall of water”. The Journal de Monaco publishes the report of the visit to the site by Prince Rainier III and Hereditary Prince Albert, on September 14, 2002, with the description of the work and its anti-corrosion protection — thirty tons of anodes for twenty-five years.
The effect is measurable: the reception capacity of Port Hercule has doubled.
Names which date the work
A detail that the archive allows us to follow: the dike was given names by successive municipal decrees. In 2008, the old southern dike became the Quai Rainier I and the northern counter-pier the Jetée Lucciana. In 2013, the upper part of the semi-floating dike was named Esplanade Stefano Casiraghi.
These acts of naming are valuable for a simple reason: they precisely date portions of work that nothing else allows us to place in time.
What Memoria doesn’t pretend to know
The date of launch of the project has not been found: the documents consulted only date back to March 2002, and the concessionaire only mentions “studies in the 1970s”. Nor is the date of completion established by an act. The sheet therefore publishes what is proven – the implementation of 2002 – and leaves the upstream in the shadows.
The facts are paraphrased; only the source is cited. A correction, a missing date? Write to Memoria.