Modular Dry Dock Launched
The first 200-foot section of a modular dry dock, designed by JMS Naval Architects for Group Ocean of New Brunswick, Canada was launched on 18 September 2019. This center section of the modular dry dock was designed to be fully operational as a stand-alone dry dock with a lifting capacity of 3,800 tons. The dry dock was designed to be built in three phases. The first 200-foot long section was designed to be joined by two additional 120-foot long end sections at a later date to create a 420-foot long dry dock. The additional end sections will increase the lifting capacity to 7,500 tons.
The wing walls are 11.5 feet wide by 30 feet high and run continuous through the midbody of the dry dock and stop two frames short of the end of the 10 foot deep pontoon to create an apron. Each modular section of the dry dock has an access through the wing walls on both the port and starboard side. A safety deck is located in the wing walls at 26 feet above the baseline. Ballast tank vents extend below the safety deck to form an air cushion. The deballasting and submergence operations are controlled from a raised control platform installed on top of the starboard wing wall of the center module. The ballast system is capable of submerging and reballasting from a 1 foot freeboard to a 26.5 foot depth over the deck in approximately 70 minutes each direction. JMS developed the complete engineering and design package, including all detail structural design, tankage, and outfitting design. Systems design included the ballast system, seachest arrangement, equipment specification, pump and discharge piping systems. JMS also designed the power system including generator arrangement, fuel tank arrangement, and electrical and piping systems one-lines. The dry dock is built and designed to be operated as a classed dry dock through Bureau Veritas (BV). The structure and systems have been designed to BV Rule Note 475, and will be built under survey by BV.
