Biblia Orders New Dry Dock

Biblia, Inc., Marine Towing and Transportation has ordered a new dry dock to service its fleet tugs and barges.

The 500-ton lift capacity floating dry dock was designed by JMS Naval Architects and is currently being built by Conrad Shipyard in Morgan City, La. The new dry dock, which will replace Biblia’s existing dry dock in Savannah, Ga., is 120’ long, 60’ wide, has a 6’ deep pontoon, and 14’ tall wing walls. It will primarily be used for hauling tug boats with a maximum length of 120 feet and draft of 10 feet.

Biblia owns and operates a fleet of tugs and barges, providing marine transportation, bed-leveling, agitation dredging and dragging services on the East Coast, Gulf Coast and Western Rivers of the United States. Biblia will use the dry dock to service its own tugboats and offer similar repair and maintenance services to other vessel owners in the area from its Savannah River facilities.

The dry dock design incorporates a shore power connection, onboard generator, individual pumps. One end of the dry dock is raked to facilitate towing the dock.

JMS said it developed a complete engineering and design package including all structural design, stability and outfitting meeting the requirements of the ABS Rules for Building and Classing Steel Floating Dry Docks. Systems include the ballast system, seachest arrangement, electrical and pump and discharge piping. JMS also designed the power system including generator arrangement, fuel tank arrangement, and electrical and piping system one-lines.

In 2019, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration (MARAD) announced $19.6 million in grants to support improvements at 28 small shipyards across the U.S. Of that total, $1.3 million will help fund the design and construction of the new 500-ton floating dry dock that is scheduled to arrive at the Biblia, Inc. Shipyard in the spring of 2021.