Semi-submersible Ships: Material Handling on a Giant Scale

By Alex Batty, MHI Marketing Communications Coordinator |@mhi_alex

You guys.

YOU GUYS!

I was surfing the interwebs, as one does, and I came across this post: https://iwastesomuchtime.com/ViableHoroscopeCheck

And ‘bout lost my mind.

Talk about material handling, am I right?

So I did some more internetting and present to you my findings. These are categorized as heavy-lift ships. Heavy-lift ships can be broken down into two types: semi-submersible and project cargo. Project cargo ships are big ol’ ships with onboard cranes to move large items onto the ship like container cranes, bridge sections, and suction piles.

But these are not the ships we are looking for…

The ships featured in the post are the second type, semi-submersible. They feature a long, low deck and have large ballast tanks that can be filled with water to submerge (semi) and then pumped out to rise back up.

Most often, these types of ships are used to transport oil rigs. Since they can move 3-4 times faster than a self-deploying rig, it means more time on the job and more $$$. Gotta love that bottom line.

However, as you saw in the post, they’re also used to move other ships. The U.S. Navy will commission them from time to time to move damaged war ships.

Random fact:  the Dockwise Vanguard is the largest vessel of this type ever built, and is able to carry cargoes up to 110,000 tons.

And I found video of it.

Watch and (hopefully) have your mind blown like I did.

 

Highlights:

0:02 – Guess what, there’s a whole ship under there.

 

0:42 – SHE RISETH FROM THE SEA; UNLEASH THE KRAKEN.

 

0:56 – THAT IS A PERSON! AND A FORKTRUCK! FOR SCALE. Good lord, that’s a big… well… anything, but a big ship.

 

1:43 – This music is… exciting, but again, BIG SHIP. That’s two helicopter pads right there. Y’know, the things they usually put on top of buildings.

 

(I’ll be honest, I started skipping forward at 2:30, so… the rest of the video is interesting in jumps; it shows how they prep the ship to take on a couple of different loads.)

Material handling is pretty cool, on a micro and a macro scale.

Mind blown.

.