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This video show the 1975 construction of the tanker M/V Batillus in St. Nazaire, France. she has since been scrapped.

Nearly 7 years ago Yantai Raffles Shipyard, in Shandong Province China, recognized that the building of tomorrow’s largest offshore oil vessels and platforms would require machinery of epic size. To prepare for this future they commissioned the construction of the World’s Largest Crane.

The Proposed Site

Groundbreaking

Laying The Foundation

Building The Towers

Read the rest of this entry »

by bhophoto

HDR photo of n FPSO being built at the Hyundai Shipyard in Korea. This is only the thumbnail… Click on the photo for a larger view!

For more HDR photos of shipyards visit Flickr: LINK

(Originally published June 2007)

The title of one story in this week’s MarEx Newsletter proclaims “Maritime Academy Graduation Heralds the Continuation of Good Times” and nothing affirms this better than a look into the order books of the world’s largest shipyards.

The information the following links comes from the Colton Company: “a small firm of specialized management consultants. Its principal consultant is Tim Colton, an industrial engineer, maritime economist and naval architect, with 49 years of experience in the shipbuilding industry, both in the U.S. and worldwide. Our business is helping your business to grow and to prosper”.

MarineLog tells us:

Tim Colton opens new maritime consultancy
Tim Colton, formerly president of international shipbuilding consultants Colton & Company, has returned to the consultancy biz after three years with Halter Marine. Colton, the perennial moderator of Marine Log’s “Shipbuilding Decisions” conference and a frequent contributor to Marine Log magazine”

Here are the pages of greatest interest:

• Shipyard Activity in 2007. It seems that the Overseas Houston (in Aker’s Philadelphia Shipyard) is the only Unlimited tonnage being built this year.
• Large Cruise Ships on Order. The largest of the large are two more Royal Caribbean’s “Freedom of the Seas” class, the world’s largest (by Gross Tons) cruise ships. They are being built by Aker Turku in Finland and are scheduled to launch in 2009 and 2010.
• Offshore is seeing perhaps the largest growth with 13 Drillships and 39 Semi-Submersibles and 79 Jack-ups on order. View the list here.
• And what is seemingly the Topic of the Day… LNG orders. With an impressive 143 ships ordered we understand the push to build terminals across the U.S.

Of great interest to U.S. Mariners; The U.S. Shipping Fleet. With seemingly every ship under the U.S. flag listed this (along with our own Merchant Fleet Chart) makes for an interesting read. Many thanks to Tim Colton for maintaining this resource. Visit the Colton Company’s Homepage for more valuable statistics.

Cunard Cruiser tells us of the recent keel laying ceremony for what will be the world’s largest cruise ship. They write;

Project Genesis, the largest cruise ship to ever make it from drawing board to production made a significant step in its journey towards the sea today (11th December) at Aker Yards ship yard in Turku, Finland.

At the milestone keel-laying ceremony, the first blocks constructing the 220,000 GRT Project Genesis were laid into the bottom of the dry dock. From here the ship will begin to take its form for the first time.
At 40% larger than any other cruise ship in the world, Project Genesis – the working title applied by cruise line Royal Caribbean International, the company behind its development – is scheduled to enter service in Autumn 2009. Project Genesis will be homeported year-round from Port Everglades, Fort Lauderdale in Florida.

Project Genesis is 1,180 feet long, 154 feet wide, and 240 feet high and will accommodate over 5,400 guests. The ship will take 5,800 man-years to complete and is expected to float on water for the first time in Winter 2008 as it nears the finishing stages. At a cost of US$230,000 per berth, Project Genesis is the most expensive cruise ship ever to be ordered. Continue Reading…

We’ll be sure to keep an eye on the official Genesis Project page for you but in the meantime… initial shipyard photos can be found HERE.

Traditionally lifeboat davits were tested using sand bags and a crew of strong AB’s. More recently water bags began to be used making the job considerably easier… you simply place the empty bag in the lifeboat, fill it with water, test the davit, then open the bag’s drain valve (do’t foget the lifeboat’s drain plug!).

While not revolutionary Eurodam News, a blog documenting Holland America Line’s newbuild project, gives us the details on shipyard testing of new davits;

For a tender it is:
Maximum number of persons on board: 150
Weight of maximum number of persons: 150 x 75 kg (165.35 pounds) = 11,250 kg (24,802 pounds)
Fully equipped lifeboat: 12,350 kg (27,227 pounds)
Total: 23,600 kg (52,029 pounds)

The test is done at 1.1 times the weight they will carry to ensure the complete construction is solidly connected to the side of the ship (the davit arms themselves are tested at the factory at 2.2 times the weight they will ever have to carry — so much stronger).

The yard connected to the lower blocks a big steel box that is filled with water so it totals the desired weight: the weight of the box and the water 23,600 kg (52,029 pounds) multiplied by 1.1 = 25,960 kg (57,232 pounds).

The weight is read by the crane driver, who has a strain gauge in the control cab of the crane. He radios the information down to the people on deck. The crane then slacks its hoisting wire so the davits take the strain. This is called the static test.

For the dynamic test, the manual brake on the winch is lifted and the box is lowered the same way you would lower the lifeboat (or tender, in this case). The lowering speed is then measured, since this needs to be between .75 and 1.30 meters (2.5 and 4.3 feet) per minute. If the boat lowers too slowly or too fast, the centrifugal speed control brake needs adjusting.

Then, after about six seconds the manual brake is thrown back — full force — and the lowering stops. This is rather spectacular, with the box bouncing up and down, and the bulkheads where the sheaves are connected flexing back and forth. Nobody envies the man who has to operate the brake!

How is a cabin is built in this day of containerization and commodization? Remotely of course. Eurodam News, Holland America’s blog showcasing the shipyard activities around their latest new build project, brings us photos of the stateroom installation.

Of potential interest to readers of this blog the method shown here is very similar to how accommodation blocks are built aboard modern commercial ships. In conjuntion with this trend is the movement towards equality among crew members, which means the Captain’s cabin is often identical to that of the most junior crew member minus the extra rack. This is in stark contrast to my first ship, a Wrecks Act tanker built in Japan, which contained bunkrooms for junior crew members and a four room (day room, office, sitting room, cabin) suite for the Captain.

It’s also not only the cabin that is built remotely and installed on site. Often entire accommodation or specialty modules are built by separate companies and placed atop the hull, which itself is built in parts and transported within the shipyard (photo example). Examples include Transocean’s newest drillship the Clear Leader, Polar Tanker’s latest ships and the Semi-Submersible Development Driller II shown in this Leirvik modular fabrication brochure.

The titan of the industry, however, is Aker Yards’. Their cabin division produces over 9000 cabin and bathroom units annually. Cruise Critics gives us an inside look at their “Cabin Factory”;

In the tiny town of Piikkio, nestled in farm country some 20 kilometers from the shipbuilding city of Turku, Aker Yards Cabins has been building pre-designed cruise cabins for 20 years. Here, panels are assembled to make walls and ceilings. Toilets are installed and shower floors, made of hard plastic and designed to resemble colorful mosaic combinations, have been pre-made and are ready to be laid in bathrooms. Entire technical systems — each cabin has its own — are put in place. Telephones, mini-bars and even electric sockets (providing access to European and American currents), along with data ports, are all snugly outfitted into a vanity desk/wall unit that’s arrived from a furniture factory elsewhere in Finland.

Even the beds hang tightly from the walls.

If you’ve ever cruised on Royal Caribbean’s Radiance-, Voyager- or Freedom-class ships in anything but a huge suite, you’ve stayed in one of these prefabs.

To read more on Aker’s “cabin Factory” click here and for the instillation of these type of modular cabins click here. Photos of the final product can be found here.

Here’s video of Aker’s “Cabin Factory”;

Edward Burtynsky makes a wish: that his images — stunning landscapes that document humanity’s impact on the world — help persuade millions to join a global conversation on sustainability. A Canadian by birth Burtynsky’s most famous photographs are sweeping views of scarred or altered landscapes of foreign countries. He was invited to China to photograph the construction of the Three Gorges Dam project. The grand, inspiring beauty of these images is often in tension with the troubled environments they depict.

Of interest to mariners are the following online galleries of his work:

Ships - Container Ports
Ships - Ship Breaking
Oil - Oil Refineries
China - Three Gorges Dam
China - Shipyards
China - Coal and Steel
China - Urban Renewal

To find out more about his work click HERE to see the video of his 2005 presentation to TED.

Update: Also see Andrew Bell’s Shipbreaking Gallery

“Ship of the Week” brings us the fifth in the Maersk E-Class Container Ships and Sister Ship to the Emma Maersk:

The Ebba Maersk (IMO: 9321524, Port of Registry: Copenhagen, Denmark) is already the fifth in line of Maersk’s PS-class. Together with her sisters (amongst which are the ‘Emma Maersk‘ and ‘Evelyn Maersk‘) she is the largest containership ever with a total teu capacity 11,000 teu (of which 1,000 forty foot reefer containers) according to the A.P. Moller - Maersk Group. Rumours are that a total capacity of 13,500 teu is also possible. This capacity is possible by stacking the containers in 22 rows wide. The vessel is 397 meters long, 56 meters wide, has a depth of 30 meters and a deadweight of 156,907 tons. Amazingly, all this size and capacity requires a crew of only 13.

Read the complete Eba Maersk profile HERE and check back with Ship of the Day… well… daily.

Sistership Emma Maersk links;

• Fire on the Emma Maersk
• Emma Maersk photos video

The Emma Maersk is a true Modern Marvel. The world largest container ship, longest ship currently in service and is propelled by the largest diesel engine ever manufactured. By mid-year 2006 the construction project was going well when on June 9th the accommodation block was devastated by fire.

Shipping Gazette

The Emma Mærsk was about six–seven weeks delayed. The delay caused by a devastating fire in the accommodation quarters in the early days of June. A welding job on the main deck, close to the end of working hours, led to a fire that totally destroyed the almost finished accommodation quarters and all the equipment in the wheelhouse.

The fire was large and devastating. Here are the photos and video taken by the local fire brigade: Read the rest of this entry »

 

 Emma Maersk Shipyard Fire - Largest Containership in the world [1:27m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download