A new combined Seakeeping and Manoeuvring Basin for the Third Millennium Maritime Research

In June 1999, MARIN's Seakeeping and Manoeuvring basin became operational. It is the first of the three (re)new(ed) basins at the sites of MARIN in Wageningen. This Seakeeping and Manoeuvring Basin is based on state of the art knowledge, but is constructed to be ready for the next millennium. The basin has been engineered to fulfil with the technology of today, the hydrodynamic questions of today and tomorrow. Before the actual design and engineering of the basins started, MARIN oriented itself on the present and future research questions. Both the market pull and the technology push have been inventoried. Based on this and the state of the art, the model basins are designed in good synergy between client questions, technology push and all MARIN departments. In this paper, it is described how the financial impulse of 100 million NLG opened the fantastic opportunity to wonderful new facilities. The functionality, properties, capabilities and measures of the new basins are described mainly from the manoeuvring point of view.