On this last day of the OMAE2011 conference, participants will have the opportunity to join several day tours before heading home. Although the primary focus of these tours will be on offshore technology, each tour will have a fair amount of Dutch culture thrown in.

The tours will depart from the conference venue in Rotterdam in the morning and have a full-day program including lunch. Following itineraries are proposed:

Tour 1 – IHC shipyard (9:00 – 18:00)

1. Visit to the IHC shipyard in Krimpen aan den IJssel, close to Rotterdam, with its showcase 250m long assembly hall, a new outfitting quay, an additional 23x90m hall for a panel assembly line and a flexible unit building to accommodate yard’s offices, suppliers and sub-contractors. This yard is the biggest manufacturing facility of IHC Merwede, a company that was at the birth of modern dredging. Ships currently under construction include a suction hopper dredger and a heavy lift vessel.
2. Visit to Kinderdijk, a UNESCO World Heritage Site with 19 windmills that date back to the eighteenth century and were used for land reclamation and dewatering that turned the rough and wet peat bog of the Alblasserwaard polder into productive farmland.
3. Visit to the Storm Surge Barrier in the Eastern Scheldt estuary, part of the famed Deltaworks that protect the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta and the urbanized area around Rotterdam from the sea.

Tour 2 – MARIN test facilities (9:00 – 18:00)

1. Visit to Kinderdijk (see Tour 1).
2. Visit to the Maritime Research Institute of the Netherlands (MARIN) in Wageningen. MARIN was founded in 1929 and is involved in offshore projects since 1960. MARIN has an exceptional range of model testing, computer simulation, full-scale measurement and training facilities. This tour provides the opportunity to visit one of the world’s leading institutes in its field, with various dedicated test basins (including a 10.5m deep offshore basin with wave, wind and current generators) and bridge simulators.