At the weekend Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. (Boskalis) successfully loaded cruise ship Carnival Vista on its semi-submersible heavy lift vessel BOKA Vanguard and transported it to a shipyard facility in Freeport, Bahamas for a unique dry docking operation.
I thought I would share some of the amazing photos and videos showing the process.
The BOKA Vanguard can be seen passing in this great drone footage below
Both ships headed a few miles offshore for the loading to commence at sunrise on 13th July. The loading operation and re float took approximately twelve hours in total.
Drone footage showing Carnival Vista loaded and BOKA Vanguard re-floating
Once re floated the BOKA Vanguard headed slowly back to the shipyard in Freeport
One of the two azipod units that will be repaired once in the shipyard
Both ships arrived in Freeport early Saturday evening
Drone footage of BOKA Vanguard sails into port with her unique cargo
A ship carrying a ship!
Once safely in port work on the repairs started immediately.
The dry dock operation will last for two weeks with Grand Bahama Shipyard also involved. In April 2019 the usual dry dock was damaged after a crane collapsed on the Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas, with both the ship and dry dock damaged. As a result, other ships including Carnival Vista have been unable to use the dry dock until it is repaired.
Once the repairs have been completed Carnival Vista will be offloaded in time for its next scheduled cruise from Galveston in Texas on 27th July.
My thanks goes to both Boskalis and Captain Vittorio Marchi of the Carnival Vista for use of the wonderful photos.
As always thank you for taking the time to read my blog.
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