Recently, India’s Cochin Shipyard held a steel cutting ceremony for a new hybrid service operation vessel (SOV) being built for offshore shipowner North Star.
The SOV is a VARD 407 design with a methanol-ready design. It can accommodate up to 34 technicians, is equipped with a highly adjustable motion-compensated gangway and a 3D motion-compensated crane, and can act as a logistics hub and warehouse. The vessel has signed a charter contract with EnBW for at least ten years and is expected to begin serving the He Dreiht wind farm off the coast of Germany at the end of 2026.
It is understood that Cochin Shipyard is the largest ship repair yard in India. Thanks to the successful completion of the new dock and the International Ship Repair Center (ISRF), the shipyard’s ship repair and shipbuilding capacity will be significantly improved.
The newly built dock is of a stepped type, with a length of 310 meters, a width of 75/60 meters, a depth of 13 meters, and a draft of 9.5 meters. It has a construction cost of 18 billion rupees (approximately 214 million US dollars). A 600-ton Goliath gantry crane will be installed, which will greatly enhance the construction capacity of Cochin Shipyard. The designed service life of the new dock is 100 years, enabling India to build large aircraft carriers with a displacement of up to 70,000 tons.
The ISRF cost about 9.7 billion rupees (about 115 million US dollars) and has a 6,000-ton ship lift, a transfer system, six workstations and about 1,400 meters of berths, which can accommodate seven 130-meter-long ships for repair at the same time.
Cochin Shipyard said the new ship repair facility is a modernization and expansion of the existing ship repair capabilities of Cochin Shipyard and is “an important step in transforming Cochin Shipyard into a global ship repair hub” and will increase India’s ship repair capabilities by about 25%.