Development of Small Craft Berths in the Waves Exposed Region with Spending Beach in Port Basins

Development of small craft berths in a port basin is necessary to accommodate berthing of small crafts, which are the integral part of port day to day operation facilities. At many major and medium ports even though port are in operation for a long period of time no exclusive berthing facilities are created for small crafts. In the absence of exclusive berthing facilities these small crafts are generally accommodated near the port dock arms where main cargo traffic are handballed. This causes traffic hindrance and also increases chances of collision of vessels. In order to avoid this it is desirable to develop exclusive berthing facilities within the port area. It is possible to develop small craft berths at the areas where it’s not suitable to develop facilities for port main traffic thus without affecting the port revenue. Spending beaches within the port areas are the one of such locations which can be used effectively for these types of developments without losing the beneficial effects of the beach. Hydraulic physical model studies conducted for the development of small craft vessel berthing at New Mangalore Port is explained in this paper. Through model studies it was suggested to develop berths without loss of the spending beach by providing berthing structures with pilled jetty without removal of the beach by extending the jetties in the water front of port basin. The orientation of the pilled jetty berths were kept perpendicular to wave crest at this location to ensure maximum comforts for the berthed vessels. Since the selected location is directly exposed to harbour entrance, during storm it is suggested to berth these small craft vessels at dock arms. This is only for a brief period for about 10 days during South-West monsoon season. Thus it is shown that it is possible to create berthing facilities for small craft vessels within the harbour in areas which are not suitable for development of commercial berths.