We are very pleased to announce that the Flemish Government has decided to invest 30.7 million euros to construct a new maritime research centre in Ostend. The research centre will include a shallow water towing tank and a wave basin. The Knowledge Centre has stongly insisted for a very long time on the construction of a second shallow water towing tank. The new tank will be 174 m long and 20 m wide with water depths of up to 1 m, which is significantly larger than the towing tank at Flanders Hydraulics in Antwerp. The present towing tank is constantly fully booked and is becoming quite small because of the increased main dimensions of the largest vessels over the last decade. Besides a significant extension of the ship hydrodynamics research capacity, the new towing tank will allow ship models of up to 8 m long to be tested, which opens opportunities for new research applications. The second towing tank will be managed by partners of the Knowledge Centre.
