On April 6 Strategic Marine (V) successfully launched a 6800 tonnes DSV with 44 pieces marine airbags in Vung Tau City Vietnam. The DSV named “Caballo Maya” has the 143 meters overall length and 22 meters moulded breadth.
Qingdao Eversafe Marine engineering compani is a professional marine engineering company and subsidiary of Evergreen Maritime,the biggest manufacturer of marine airbags and boat fenders. Eversafe Marine offered Strategic Marine (v) the total pack for his DSV launching which include marine airbags and on site consultant service.
Strategic Marine is an International Shipbuilding company that specialises in both aluminum and steel construction. The Australian born shipbuilder currently operates shipyards in Australia, Singapore, Vietnam and Mexico.
The “Caballo Maya” was built on a 1.37 degree slipway which consists of cement columns and rubbles. The extended slipway to the sea was covered by well welded steel plates and all the joints were abraded to be smooth.
The procedure of “Caballo Maya” launching can be described as follows: first step lift up the ship with marine airbags and remove all wooden blocks; second step move the ship forward 35 meters; third step cut steel ropes to release the ship when the tide water reach enough high.Two 50 tonnes winches were employed to pull the ship from unexpected sliding before inflated airbags lift up vessel from blocks. It took six hours to lift up whole ship and remove all support blocks. At the midnight of April 5 the ship was positioned at the right place after 5 hours hard working.
In the next day morning 800 tonnes ballast water were added to the ship’s cabins to gain the stability of launching. At 4 PM of April 6 when the water depth reached 4.5 meters, John Wray, the site manager of Strategic Marine sent out the “go” command. Two steel ropes were chopped up at the same time then the big vessel began to move with the rolling Evergreen airbags and entered into the sea smoothly. It is a real magic show that all people are affected to cheer and scream.
To complete this launching project it is a trial for Eversafe marine airbag and ship launching technology since there is no strong enough concrete slipway. During the lifting and launching process the ground sinked more than 5 cm between cement columns that cause many troubles of launching. So it took 5 hours to move vessel forward 30 meters. From this point people can see the advantage of airbag ship launching technology: it can remedy the unperfect launch conditions. In fact if a shipyard want to launch a vessel in the most short time and spend least money, airbag ship launch technology is the best choice.
