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Dockwise Yacht Transport has been in the boat delivery business for 21 years. Their semi-submersible vessels operate world wide.

Dockwise’s newest vessel, the China Built heavy lift ship Yacht Express is the world’s largest float-on float-off yacht carrier (Video). This amazing ship has opened a regular round-trip service between Florida and the Mediterranean. 18 yachts worth in total some £78 million are being carried aboard the 209m long vessel on its inaugural voyage. Here is information from the owners:

Yacht Express

As the leaders in yacht transport since the 1980s, Dockwise Yacht Transport is taking yacht delivery to an even higher level by introducing the world’s first specifically-built yacht carrier, Yacht Express. The carrier provides the fastest transatlantic service ever from Florida and the Mediterranean each month. This new yacht transport vessel features amenities designed for worldwide yacht transport, including: conference room, media room, an atrium with a swimming pool, fitness room, complimentary cabins for ride-aboard crew and other facilities to make the voyage as productive and pleasant as possible. This yacht transport vessel is the largest vessel of its kind in the world.

Design Features
This specially designed yacht carrier is semi-submersible in order to maintain the unique float-on/float-off loading method. The yacht delivery carrier will have a length of 209 meter (685.7 ft) and a beam of 32.2 meter (106 ft). The yachts can be safely accommodated between the spray covers in the dock bay, which measures a deck space of 165 meter (541 ft) in length and 31 meter (102 ft) in width. With a deck space of 5,115 square meters (55,060 ft) DYT is able to transport more yachts in one voyage.

Ballasting and deballasting is carried out with four main ballast pumps, each with a capacity of 1,200 cu.m/h at 30 m head. Other pump systems include two fi-fi/general service pumps, each with a capacity of 100 cu.m/h at 80 m head or 210 cu.m/h at 30 m head; an emergency fire pump of 72 cu.m/h at 70 m head; and a 200 cu.m/h ejector pump. Cargo handling is facilitated by a 2 x 10 t crane with an outreach of 15 m.

Propulsion Plant

Propulsion and maneuvering plant consists of two 8,700 kW Wärtsilä 12V38 B common rail diesel generator sets, each driving two Lips azimuth pulling thrusters featuring cp-propellers via two electric motors of 5,100 kW each. Maneuvering is enhanced by a single 1,640 kW bow thruster with cp-propeller.

Auxiliary power is derived from two Wärtsilä 6L20 common rail diesel generator sets of 1,020 kW. Emergency power is supplied by a Volvo Penta D34A MS generator of 610 kW, 440 V, 60 Hz.

The spacious bridge features an integrated bridge system consisting of a UniMACS 3000 with two radar systems with ARPA and two ECDIS, one conning and platform management system, incorporating an advanced DPT 3500 autopilot/joystick system.

Sophisticated

“More important is that this sophisticated yacht carrier is designed to have a service speed of 18 knots”, said Clemens van der Werf, President of DYT, “meaning that a trans-Atlantic voyage from the Mediterranean to Florida/Caribbean with this ultra modern yacht carrier will be reduced by nearly 50% from 15 to 8 days! Owners can enjoy the advantage of extra riders on board to accompany the yacht during the voyage and they can enjoy our state-of-the-art facilities on board. The addition of this new yacht carrier to our fleet implies an important step forward for DYT to improve the quality of services to clients that is based on safety, regularity and reliability.”

Launch completed

The launch of the Yacht Express was a major milestone in the development of the yacht transport industry. On January 15th, 2007 the Yacht Express was skidded from its construction berth ashore, where it was built since September 2005, onto four connected floating submersible barges. The skidding process was completed within 6 hours.

On January 19th, 2007 the barges were submersed and the Yacht Express floated off at high tide and moored alongside the construction berth for further outfitting and commissioning. Dockwise Yacht Transport took delivery of the vessel in October, 2007.

…And for anyone that’s curious: yes it is built to sink.

Photos of Dockwise in action can be found HERE. [Continue Reading →]

 

 Dockwise Yacht Express: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

MarineLog brings us info on the new Heavy Lift design by SeaMetric International. The Twin Marine Lifter will consist of 2 DP class 3 heavy transport vessels with a dwt capacity of 25.000 tonnes. They will have accommodations for 41, a helideck, and will be capable of submersion to -20 meters. When used as a heavy lift vessel the two ships will merge and the unit to be transported will be brought in to straddle the two units creating one monster heavy lift ship.

Offshore Shipping Online tells us: [Continue Reading →]

 

 Heavy Lift Ship - Twin Marine Lifter: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The task is to lift the whole bridge sections, each weighing approx. 3500 tonnes.

[Continue Reading →]

Photo By Gerard Stolk

Shipspotters (via Fred Fry’s Discoverer Entry) brings us Zhen Hua 10 Stranded on Beach near Rotterdam!

We detailed the sister ship Zhen Hua 5 ship in a previous video post titled: Time Lapse Video - Moving a Crane

Ship Of The Day tells us:

Today we have a very special report at Ship of the Day. In the night between friday and saturday, the heavy load carrier Zhen Hua 10 (IMO: 7917410, Port of Registry: Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines), which was anchored near Rotterdam, ran adrift in storm conditions and floated towards the Dutch coast, where she finally ran aground at the ‘Slufter’-beach at the Maasvlakte. For a while it appeared that the vessel was in danger of capsizing, but she was soon stable being stuck in the sand. The Zhen Hua 10 is loaded with 5 containercranes (of which one is destined for the new Euromax-terminal at Rotterdam) from Shanghai and has a crew of 33, which are still on board and not injured. Continue Reading…

Location of beached ship:

AIS Map by dirk.jan

Video of beached ship:

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Related Links:

• Flickr Slideshow of Incident
• Shipspotters Discussion
• PortPictures - Incident Photos
• Pre-Incident Photos of Crane Ship Zhen Hua
• Original Tugspotter Blog Post
• VIDEO of the incident
• Time Lapse Video - Moving a Crane

UPDATE:

Dirkjan (creator of the AIS plot seen above) emailed us with the following update:

I have some news: Zhen Hua 10 is floating again since an half hour. I see this on my Shipplotter screen.
Earlier on Monday they managed to turn the vessel 90 deg,
heading to sea, and around midnight they used 3 harbourtugs
and one big tug (Janus IMO 9367504) and this was succesful.

Click Photo For Details

Bloomberg News tells us:

South Korea’s coast guard sent boats to contain the country’s biggest oil spill in more than a decade after a Hong Kong-registered supertanker collided with a barge.

About 81,000 barrels of crude oil was spilt after a crane on the barge crashed into the Hebei Spirit at 7:15 a.m. local time, Jeong Seon Mun, deputy director of the maritime safety information center at South Korea’s Ministry of Maritime Affairs & Fisheries, said. The ship was anchored 5 miles (8 kilometers) northwest of the Taean peninsula at the time.

The leak is almost a third of the 37,000 tons spilled into Prince William Sound, Alaska, by the Exxon Valdez in 1989, according to data on the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation’s Web site. The Taean Coast Guard deployed 12 patrol boats and 3 accident control vessels, Jeong said today.

“Oil is still spilling,” Jeong said by telephone in Seoul. “The police face difficulty in carrying out the operation because high waves make it hard to contain the spill.” Continue Reading…

Ship of the Day brings us the Saipem 7000;

Today’s SotD is world’s second largest crane vessel Saipem 7000 (IMO: 8501567, Port of Registry: Nassau, Bahama’s) with a lifting capacity of 2 x 7,000 tonnes. Only Heerema’s Thialf is larger with its lifting capacity of 2 x 7,100 tonnes, however the crane radius of Saipem 7000 grant a lifting capability of 14000 t at 42 meters while Thialf can only lift 14200 at 31.2 meters; for this reason, the Saipem 7000 retains the world lifting records. The Saipem 7000 is 198 metres long, has a free deck area of 9,000 sq. m. and a transit speed of 9.5 knots. The vessel is equipped with 10 azimuth thrusters for exact manoeuvring.

Continue Reading….

Shipspotting forum points us to Seven Marine’s photos of a recent heavy lift operation:

The FPSO Sevan Voyageur left Yantai Raffles Shipyard in China this morning. The FPSO is placed onboard a dry tow vessel and is on its way to the Keppel Verolme shipyard for topside hook-up and commissioning. FPSO Sevan Voyageur will be installed on the Shelley field in the central UK North Sea in 2008, under a five year contract with Oilexco North Sea Ltd.

Full sized photos HERE.

A time lapse of the ZHEN HUA 5 on May 5th 2007 in Harwich Harbour carrying away a Port of Felixstowe ship to shore crane. The crane is twisted and buckled after a collision with a ship. The cruise ship Princess Danae passes in the foreground. YouTube Link

pbase’s description of above photo: [Continue Reading →]