Repair Report: GMD Performs Evergreen Repair

This past November, the GMD Group performed emergency repairs to Evergreen's 46,411-gt containership M/V Ever Goods, when its rudder failed in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world — midway between New York and New Jersey, underneath the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Rather than pay anywhere between five and six million dollars to tow the broken vessel to its homeport in Japan, the owners opted to call on GMD's Bayonne Drydock & Repair, which was conveniently located just a few miles from the bridge. Originally the plan called for the fabrication of a new rudder stock, but when GMD located a never-before used tailshaft with ABS certification papers in San Francisco, Calif. those plans were quick to change. It was decided by both the representatives from Evergreen and Bayonne's project engineer, Carl Gomez to drydock the vessel at the Bayonne yard on December 2, 2002, where it remained until the end of the year.

Workers at the Bayonne yard immediately began to fabricate a new 22.5-ton, 8,698 x 699-mm rudder stock, commencing with classification inspections that were carried out by NK surveyors, while all fabricating instructions and measurements were conducted through Gomez.

In addition to the rudder stock fabrication, the vessel's steering system was completely disassembled from top to bottom. All parts were inspected and measured and the carrier bearing and carrier plate were machined down. Following measurements taken via laser beam from the new machined carrier bearing to neck bearing and gudeon bor, it was recommended by project engineer Gomez that a line bor was not necessary.

M/V Ever Goods' new steering system consisted of a Thordon bearing, which was fabricated accordingly at the yard to Thordon machining instructions for steering.

Following operational tests at the Bayonne yard, the vessel departed on December 29, 2002.

ASRY Comes Up Aces

In line with expectations, 2002 turned out highly successful for the ASRY ship repair yard in Bahrain, which repaired approximately 95 vessels — ranging from ULCC's and chemical carriers — to offshore drill rigs and diving support vessels. Thus illustrating the company's broad width of expertise in a variety of areas.

With sales throughout the year up approximately 13 percent during the previous year, with a significant increase in the number of vessels coming from the Arab market, this particular market sector has increased by approximately 50 percent during the past three years.

Dock occupancy has remained high with the Graving Dock No 1 occupied 89 percent of the time, while Floating Dock No. 2's occupancy was 88.2 percent; Floating Dock No. 3 held topped off at 92 percent. Of the 95 vessels that the yard docked in 2002, 14 came in at more than 175,000 dwt, nine were in the 70,000 to 175,000 dwt range, while the remaining rounded out at below 70,000 dwt.

Some of the major repairs completed during the year included Vela Intl. Marine's tanker Orion Star at 305,227 dwt, the 305,668 dwt Carina Star, the Hydra Star at 305,846 dwt, and Polaris Star at 301,569 dwt. In addition, a variety of owners had more than three vessels docked at ASRY during the year, specifically Kuwait Oil Tanker Co.; Saudi Arabian Oil Co.; NPCC; NSCSA/Mideast Shipmanagement; Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co.; Red Sea Marine Services; and Petrobras, to name a few.

However, the largest vessel to call at the yard was the 457,927 dwt Stena King, which underwent approximately 500 tons of steel replacement where as the largest blasting and painting contract was completed on the 265,243 dwt World Prelude. Requiring nearly 110,000 sq. m. of blasting with more than 313,000 sq. m. of painting, both contracts were completed on time.

And demands for blasting and painting continued at a high level throughout 2002, with more than 831,000 sq. m. of blasting being completed and more than 3,512,000 sq. m. of painting completed at the yard.

Dockyard Doubles Its Prosperity

In January 2003, Huarun Dadong Dockyard (HRDD) was awarded eight vessel repair contracts awarded in succession — doubling the amount of jobs the yard was awarded just one year previous.

Measuring 614 x 93 ft. (187.3 x 28.4 m) M/V Sheila Macdevitt of U.S.-based TECO Shipping will undergo approximately 70,000 sq. m. of sandblasting and coating in ballast tanks, holds and main decks, and more than 150 tons of steel renewal. The 896 141-ft. (273 x 43-m) M/V Lady Madonna of Japan's Toyo Sangyo Japan will receive 45,000 sq. m. hold sandblasting and zinc silicate coating, and 300 tons of steel renewal and routine dry docking works for shafting and hull maintenance works, while M/V Integra Duckling 886 x 138 ft. (270 x 42 m) of TNT from Taiwan will experience 28,800 sq. m. hold sandblasting and coating and 100 tons of steel renewal and dry docking works. Routine dry docking works for M/V Maritime Peace 525 x 83 ft. (160 x 25.4 m) of Taspool (IMC) from Singapore, M/V Grand Race 588 x 106 ft. (179.1 x 32.2) of CIDO Shipping from South Korea and M/V Glorious Sun 543 x 89 ft. (165.5 x 27 m) of Veritas Maritime Corporation from Philippine, and two domestic vessels for docking and minor repairs.

Located at the entrance of Yangtze River into the China East Sea and opposite to Shanghai Port, Huarun Dadong Dockyard (HRDD) is closelyfollowing the rapid step of Shanghai’s economic development, reforming externally and internally. Within the last seven years of improvement after HRDD's establishment, the company now has the ability to bid for repairs and conversions not only on bulk carriers and multi-purpose carriers, but also on container, chemical tankers, RoRos and LPG vessels with satisfactory feedback from owners.

With the steady technique support from Hudong shipbuilding yard which is the shareholder of HRDD together with China Resource (Hong Kong) Ltd, the repair work scope in the yard consisted of the completion of several successful repair contracts: conversion of bulk carrier cargo hold into container cargo hold and converted container hold 12-ft. cover into 24 ft. cover for SS Manulani from Matson in October of 2000; 1,700 tons of steel renewal on M/V Primo in 2001 from Barber Ship Management, which again awarded M/V Leopardy with 1,100 tons of steel renewal to HRDD. In addition, HRDD performed 700 tons of steel renewal on M/V Irongate from Zodiac in 25 days during May 2002.

The systematic management and the infrastructure reinforcement such as berth extension and air compressor capacity expansion enable HRDD to sandblast all holds for panamax ships simultaneously and accomplish successfully 13,000 sq. m. of cargo tank sandblasting for M/T Emerald Sky from Tanker Pacific within 15 days this May.