If a car breaks down, we put it on a trailer and take it to service, and if something big needs to be transported, we put it on a truck, train or plane. But what if you have to transport something as big as even the largest plane, and the final destination is, say, an ocean area? Well, that’s when the world’s largest transport ship or, according to its official classification, its semi-submersible cargo ship, the BOKA Vanguard, comes into its own. permanently pocket this address.
Of course, the question arises as to what the hell 110,000 tons can be that needs to be transported by water. The BOKA Vanguard is the largest machine of the Dutch Dockwise shipping company, which specializes in such vessels, and was primarily designed to move offshore drilling rigs, giant oil and gas industry equipment, facilities, but can even transport huge ships when appropriate. Another of the company’s ships, the MV Blue Marlin, for example, can take several huge transport ships at the same time.
In 2019, BOKA Vanguard, with its length of 275 meters and width of 70 meters, helped a huge ocean liner, the Carnival Vista, when it broke down in the Caribbean, and the only dry dock in the area was unavailable. So there was nothing to do, the BOKA Vanguard was needed to pick up the 323-meter-long ocean liner capable of accommodating four thousand passengers. In addition, since the Vanguard can also operate as a dry dock, it was not necessary to transport the Carnival, only to lift it out of the water so that its faulty engine system could be installed there.
But how does Vanguard do all this? At a glance, we can see that we are not dealing with a classic ship shape: the basic feature of such semi-submersible cargo ships is that they have a huge, straight loading surface, which can be lowered under the water if necessary thanks to the ship’s special ballast system. In the case of the Vanguard, there can be up to 16 meters of water above the loading area, so that even huge objects can be floated on or off it. In addition to the large, flat cargo area, Vanguard also has five turrets – one of the five houses the control tower and other rooms for the forty-person crew, and the others contain parts of the special ballast system. When the Vanguard is about to pick up or put down something, they are the only ones visible from the water. All this should be imagined like this:
(Sources: CNN | Wired)
