Van Schaik deploys large equipment for excavation of Juliana Canal

By April 2025, ships should be sailing through the Juliana Canal again. To make this possible, earth-moving specialists and machinery have been brought to Limburg from all over the Netherlands. One of the companies is Van Schaik from Harmelen. It cooperated in the earthmoving work in section South.

"We are helping to write a piece of history," is how Peter van Schaik, managing director of Van Schaik, describes the widening of the Juliana Canal. "That a canal is drained we very likely only experience once. It's a wonderful project, we're proud to be working on this." Peter is the second generation of Van Schaik. His father founded the company 55 years ago. Today the company is a specialist in earthmoving in the broadest sense of the word. They have a large fleet of machinery and have the professionals in-house, from work planner to GPS specialist.

30-ton crawler crane

Van den Herik subcontracted work area South to Boskalis. Boskalis, in turn, engaged Van Schaik to roll out the bentonite mats. Van Schaik used its largest machine for this, the 30-ton crawler crane with a 14-meter boom. "For ten weeks we used this crane to roll out the bentonite mats in the bed of the canal. About 13,000 m2 per week, at the peak of the work even 15,000 m2. These are gigantic quantities. Then we applied the gravel and broken stone. On the crane is one of our machinists, a man with experience and knowledge of this kind of work. We work with GPS machine control so you can see where you are working. Bringing the split up to height is particularly difficult. It is precision work and requires great accuracy and care from the operator."  

Teamwork

"We work here with several parties as one team to get the job done together. When you see all the machines and people at work in the bed of the Juliana Canal, it's one big well-oiled machine."