General Dynamics NASSCO announced that its newly built 35,000-tonne lifting capacity floating drydock has been shipped by the semi-submersible heavy lift vessel BOKA Vanguard and has arrived in Long Beach, California.
This floating drydock is the largest ever built in Turkey. It was constructed by the Turkish GEMAK Group at its shipyard in Yalova and is classified by the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS).
Kuehne+Nagel utilized Boskalis’ semi-submersible vessel to transport this 17,300-ton floating drydock from Turkey to the U.S. West Coast, covering a distance of approximately 13,500 nautical miles, crossing the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and enduring storms with waves as high as 20 meters. The “BOKA Vanguard” measures approximately 275 meters in length and over 75 meters in width, making it too wide to pass through the Panama Canal.
Aliye Erkan Bıyık, Project Logistics Manager at Kuehne+Nagel, explains: “For our team, the shipment officially begins when the mooring ropes connecting the fixed floating dock to the pier are untied. Once untied, four tugboats will tow the floating dock to open waters, where it will be loaded onto a transport ship and shipped to its final destination in San Diego.”
General Dynamics NASSCO, a subsidiary of defense contractor General Dynamics, plans to put the 253-meter x 54-meter floating dry dock into service to support naval and commercial shipbuilding and maintenance projects at its San Diego shipyard.
Located in San Diego, the shipyard has been designing and building ships since 1960 and is the only full-service shipyard on the West Coast of the U.S..
General Dynamics NASSCO mainly constructs auxiliary ships and support ships for the U.S. Navy, while in the commercial ship market, it focuses on building oil tankers and dry cargo ships. The shipyard covers a land area of 348,000 square meters and a water area of 190,000 square meters, with complete facilities capable of supporting the construction and maintenance of various types of ships. Its main facilities include: 2 launching slipways; 8 berths (ranging from 180 meters to 305 meters in length); 1 dry dock (305m x 53m); 9 gantry/portable cranes, with a maximum single-lift capacity of 300 tonnes and a combined-lift capacity of up to 620 tonnes; 1 NASVEA-certified floating dry dock (250m x 41.5m); 6 production workshops and 10 assembly areas; as well as 2 sandblasting workshops and 5 painting workshops.
Since the 1960s, General Dynamics NASSCO has built approximately 70 ships for the U.S. Navy and delivered 53 commercial ships to commercial customers. The ship types include combat logistics support ships, amphibious ships and tankers.