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MotorshipTHE

March 2012 Informing Shipping Professionals since 1920

Vol. 93 Issue 1091

_The Motorship_Mar_2012_The Motorship 05/03/2012 09:44 Page 1

Back-to-back cruise ship projects at Gibdock’s No.1 dock have seen the return of the 37,773gt,1,575-passenger capacity Thomson Destiny for

its fourth visit since a first refit in Gibraltar in 2006.The 1982-built cruise ship arrived at the Gibraltar-

based ship repair yard on 13 November to undertakeworks afloat and then docked on 21 November oneday after Pullmantur’s Zenith had left the 260m x 38mx 10m dock after a 12-day stay.

“In many ways this was a routine dry docking, butwith two large cruise ships docking one after the otherwe had to make doubly sure we managed the timepressures very carefully,” says Gibdock commercialdirector, Richard Beards.

The 214m long Thomson Destiny, owned by LouisCruises, is on long term charter with Thomson Cruises.During the two week stay at Gibdock the yard carriedout a variety of tasks including high pressure washingand painting of the vessel’s hull, refurbishment of theanchor chain, sea valves and bow thruster, pipe workand steel repairs in the tanks. Before entering drydockthe yard carried out afloat repairs alongside.

Beards added: “We have developed a close work-ing relationship with Louis Cruises and the fact that wehave been able to secure repeat business of this typeshows we are gaining the trust of leading regionalcruise operators.” Louis Cruises' superintendant,Chrysanthos Chrysanthou commented: “Gibdock’sproject management has been very successful as theyard was able to handle multiple activities, and adaptto changes and additional requirements, and stillcomplete all works ahead of time.”

Previously on 7 November, the 42,255gt, 1992-built Zenith arrived in Gibraltar for various tasks that

had to be completed in time for the ship to leave dockon 20 November for Brazil to start its next cruise. Onejob was renewal of the rudder neck bushes whichrequired the drilling of two holes into the bottom floorof the drydock so that the Zenith’s two rudders couldbe lowered to get them out. “Not many yards would

go to such lengths,” says Richard Beards, Gibdockcommercial director. “But it shows our flexibility andwillingness to do whatever is necessary to meet ourcustomer’s requirements.”

Pullmantur Cruises has previous experience of usingGibdock, docking a number of vessels with the yardin recent years, and this track record played a part inthe yard winning this latest project. A collisioninvolving the three-year-old 5,500dwt multipurposegeneral cargo/container vessel Ems, owned by WerseSchiffahrts of Munster, Germany, recently brought anew customer to Gibdock.

SIGNIFICANT DAMAGEThe Ems was alongside in the port of Montril, Spain,when the vessel was struck by the bulbous bow of theferry Ace 2 and suffered significant damage to both herport and starboard sides.

The Ems arrived in Gibraltar in early Decemberand some 22 tonnes of steel was used to repair thehole in the vessel’s side and other work during a 14 day period in Gibdock’s No3 drydock. On leavingthe drydock, the Ems remained at the yard for furtherperiod of alongside repairs and maintenance to thehatch covers hydraulic systems.

The ship owner expressed itself highly satisfiedwith the work carried out and has indicated that itplans to bring further vessels to the yard in future.Werse's superintendent, Capt Peter Lodygowski, said:“We recognised that this period before Christmas wasa very busy one for everybody but Gibdock promisedto get the extensive steel work done before theholiday time and they were true to their word. I cansay that the quality of the steel work repairs wasexcellent, leaving me pleasantly surprised.”

SHIP REPAIR & CONVERSION

38 www.motorship.com March 2012

Back-to-back cruisedockings for Gibdock

Three weeks of intensive work late last year byengineers from UK company Royston has won praisefrom the Norwegian operators of the NormandInstaller after it was found to need an urgent engineoverhaul before resuming work off West Africa.

Built in 2006, the Solstad owned 14,506gt deep-water offshore construction support vessel was inHartlepool to load cables that it was scheduled to layon the Asgard field offshore Angola. However, waterleaks from the exhaust seat of a cylinder head on oneof the ship’s four Wärtsilä engines led ship’s staff andWärtsilä engineers to immediately identify a need toinspect and pressure-test other cylinders heads. Itwas concluded that their con-dition meant that eachof the 48 cylinder heads on all of the ship’s enginesneeded to be overhauled before resuming work offAngola. This was essential to avoid risk of problemsand delays.

An engineering team was quickly assembled byRoyston who, working in cooperation with the on-board Wärtsilä service engineer, devised a work planthat would enable as many cylinder headsas possible to be removed and serviced while theship was docked in Hartlepool. With 24-hour working

initiated at Royston’s workshop in Newcastle-upon-Tyne,the company serviced and overhauled all of the cylinderheads for two of the ship’s main engines. The result wasthat 12-days after the problem had been identified, atotal of 32 cylinder heads had been removed, cleaned,machined and re-installed so that the engines werereturned to full operational condition.

With the Normand Installer committed to a tightwork schedule off Angola, two Royston engineers sailedalong with the Wärtsilä service engineer to Las Palmaswhere they were able to resume the overhaul of thecylinder heads on the remaining engines. This wasachieved in a workshop created on-board with the useof equipment supplied by Royston. It was therebypossible to machine the cylinder head valves and valveseats and to use a cylinder head cleaning tank andpressure testing equipment while at sea.

At Las Palmas, the team on board was joined by threemore Royston engineers, enabling the introduction of a24-hour shift pattern. This was maintained through-outthe remainder of the voyage and ensured that everycylinder head on the ship’s four engines had beenremoved, serviced and replaced before it anchored offAbijan, Cote d'Ivoire.

Royston completes challenging engine overhaul

‘Zenith’ in Gibdock’s No1 drydock

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