China: Nantong Dongxin Shipyard Launches Cargo Ship with Eversafe Marine Airbags

Nantong Dongxin Heavy Industry is a fast growing shipbuilding company located in China. Recently its new built DWT28,000 cargo ship was successfully launched with marine airbags by Eversafe Marine. The ship named “zhong ning hai” has 174 meters total length and 24 meters molded breadth. Its light weight (launch weight ) is about 6000 tons.

Cargo ship is very suitable to be launched with air bags since it has big flat bottom. The ship is built on a concrete ramp which has a 1/80 slope angle. The only problem for this project is the insufficiency water level. To conquer this Eversafe marine performed a detailed calculation to decide the minimum water level for safe launching. According to calculation the ship need to be moved forward 15 meters from it initial position then it will get enough buoyancy to float during the launch.

In two days the vessel was lifted and moved to launch position with airbags. On site Engineers checked water level carefully to estimate the best launch time. When water reach enough level people unlocked the pulling wire ropes then vessel started to move into water with airbags. At about 120 m distance vessel got total floatation and ten was tugged to moor at the jetty.

This launch project took Eversafe team totally three days. All works have been done at leisure. With good launch condition and qualified team the airbag ship launching project can be done very easy.