‘Heila is not a stranger to us’, says Gerrit Veldhuysen, Superintendent at Van der Kamp. ‘We have five vessels in our fleet, two of which are equipped with Heila cranes.’

Gerrit Veldhuysen has been working for more than 30 years at Van der Kamp (full name Bagger- en Aannemingsbedrijf Van der Kamp), the dredging and contracting company. Van der Kamp is a family business that since the end of the 19th century has been active as a shipping company and a builder’s merchant. They extended these activities with the extraction and trading of sand and gravel. In 1926, Van der Kamp was one of the first companies to order the construction of a self-propelled sand suction dredger, the ‘Stad Zwolle’. In the nineteen sixties, Van der Kamp started operating concrete batching plants and the sand extraction company developed into a dredging company. The company specialises in maintenance dredging using trailing suction hopper dredgers. It enters into contracts with the Dutch government for tackling oil spills at sea and with Rijkswaterstaat (Directorate General for Public Works and Water Management) for beach replenishments, for instance for Texel (the largest Dutch Wadden Sea island). 
Van der Kamp continuously aims to improve and become more efficient and considers a good relationship with its customers important. The company believes in quality, flexibility and reliability.

New cranes and inspections
‘We were satisfied with the marine cranes we had bought in the past from Heila Cranes Netherlands and when we were looking for cranes for a new dredger, we contacted Heila,’ continues Gerrit Veldhuysen. ‘Heila supplies not only standard cranes. Specially for us it equipped one of the fixed boom cranes, an HRM 75-14F with two 5-tonne winches that will run synchronously. The second crane is also a fixed boom crane, however, it has a larger reach and a greater lifting capacity. This HMR 240-13F crane has a  double line 17 tonne winch. Both cranes are suitable for the planned activities on and around the new dredger.

It is nice for us to do business with a professional and all-round company like Heila Netherlands. Every year we have our cranes inspected as required by the Dutch regulations. If we are in the neighbourhood of Heila, they will carry out these inspections.’