Shiprepair & Maintenance: 3rd Quarter 2017
The Port of Marseille, working with the shiprepair yard operator, Chantier Naval de Marseille (CNM), has reopened the large Drydock 10 in recent weeks, after an extensive renovation programme. The facility, which had not been used since 2000, features a drydock that is 465m long and 85m wide, making it the largest anywhere in the Mediterranean.
Before it could be returned to use, Drydock 10 required a significant amount of refit work. This included rebuilding the pump room, renovation of the power supply, the purchase of new tools and the reconstruction of the drydock doors.
The refurbished facility is expected to be in high demand, especially for regional cruiseship operators. With several vessels of 360m in length and more now serving the Mediterranean cruise sector, Drydock 10 fills a gap in the market, and avoids having to refit and repair cruiseships a long way from their normal routes. The dock is also considered well-suited for repairs to large containership, bulk carriers, gas tankers and offshore vessels. CNM, a subsidiary of Italy’s San Giorgio del Porto (SGdP) group, now operates three drydocks in the French port, having been appointed as the port authority’s contractor in 2010, making Marseille a leading shiprepair centre in the region.
Even before Drydock 10 was officially reopened, CNM had undertaken a number of cruiseship repairs at its existing docks in 2017. This May, for example, the company docked the Celebrity Constellation for pod maintenance, general service work and the installation of new balconies and other structures.
In Genoa, SGdP has been busy with some notable offshore vessel projects. This spring the yard completed a significant package of maintenance work on the 157m subsea installation vessel, Lewek Connector, and the 178m Lewek Constellation, a pipe and cable layer. This work took around three months to complete. For Lewek Connector, SGdP overhauled the vessel’s box coolers, repaired hull damage, carried out thruster maintenance, repaired the 6,000tonnes carousel and installed a routing sheave and a new winch. The yard further undertook hull blasting and painting while the vessel was in drydock. For Lewek Constellation the work included manufacturing and installing an interface grillage for the carousel on the main deck, and renewing crane boom wire for the 3,000tonnes capacity main deck crane. In addition, SGdP overhauled various items of machinery and equipment onboard, including hydraulic pumps, refrigeration units and lube oil coolers.
A spokesman for SGdP says: “We are proud of the synergies that the two yards, in Genoa and Marseille, bring forward every day. Customers can now be offered a range of possibilities and solutions, guaranteeing that performance is in line with the tight time constraints that they set out.”
