Grand Harbour breakwater in Malta: 1903-09

摘要

The Grand Harbour in Malta has long been coveted by European maritime powers due to its strategic position in the Mediterranean. The 1903-09 breakwater scheme was promoted by the British Admiralty to strengthen the principal maritime base and dockyard of the Royal Navy's Mediterranean fleet. State-of-the-art precast construction techniques developed on Dover harbour transformed Malta's chief port into one of the world's finest deep-sea harbours (Fig. 1). This paper focuses on the technical design and construction aspects of the basic element of the scheme—the two breakwater arms—and reviews the engineering achievements in a historical context.