Dutch, Belgian Kings opening Terneuzen sea lock today; One of the largest in the world
After over seven years of construction, Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Belgian King Filip will open De Nieuwe Sluis in Terneuzen on Friday. The sea lock is one of the largest in the world. It is located on Dutch territory, but is mainly intended to make the port of Ghent in Belgium more accessible to seagoing vessels, NOS reports.
The lock is 427 meters long, 55 meters wide, and almost 16.5 meters deep, making it one of the largest locks in the world. It is just as large as the locks in the Panama Canal and a tiny bit smaller than the IJmuiden Sea Lock, which opened in 2022.
As the demand for a larger sea lock came mainly from Belgium, Flanders covered around 80 percent of the 1.2 billion euros the construction of this sea lock cost. The Netherlands paid a few hundred million euros, and the European Union contributed a modest amount. The project became something of a symbol of Dutch and Belgian cooperation. The Kings of the two countries will open the lock together from an electric ship.
A special committee was set up to name the lock, but couldn’t come up with a better name than the working title ‘De Nieuwe Sluis.’ The lock will, therefore, be called De Nieuwe Sluis, but the name of the entire Terneuzen lock complex will be changed to the North Sea Locks.
The sea lock won’t immediately start operating at full capacity. “This lock is so big that the employees have to practice first,” a spokesperson told NOS. Over a period of a few months, increasingly larger ships will sail through the lock until everyone is used to it.
