Provision of the equipment to carry out the works  for the North Wall Extension, was put out to tender and Harland and Wolff in Belfast was granted the contract to supply the shear float while the contract for the bell float went to the engineering firm of Thomas Grendon & Co. of Drogheda in County Louth. The shear float measured one hundred and thirty five feet long by forty-eight feet beam by fourteen feet overall depth and the bell float was eighty feet long by thirty feet beam by eight feet depth.

The shear float and diving bell were used for several other improvements in the port including laying the pre-cast foundations for the new Bull Wall Lighthouse and laying concrete reinforcing blocks around the Poolbeg lighthouse.