Biblia Marine Towing and Transportation oversaw the launch of the new floating drydock at Conrad Shipyard in Morgan City, Louisiana in late June
Providence, a 36.5-m floating drydock, will be used to maintain and service its own tugboats and those of other vessel owners. Biblia will operate this from its Savannah River shipyard facilities in Georgia.
Conrad built this towed drydock with an 18.2 m beam, 1.8-m deep pontoon and 4.3-m tall wing walls. It will be used primarily for hauling tugboats with a maximum length of 36.5 m and draught of 3 m.
Providence will incorporate a shore power connection, onboard generator, and individual pumps. One end of the drydock is raked to enable towing the dock using tugs.
JMS Naval Architects designed Providence with 500 tonnes of lift capacity.
It developed a complete engineering and design package which included all structural design, stability and outfitting meeting the requirements of the ABS Rules for Building and Classing Steel Floating Dry Docks.
Onboard systems include the ballasting unit, seachest arrangement, electrical, and pump and discharge piping. JMS also designed the power system including generator arrangement, electrical and piping system lines and fuel tank arrangement.
Design and construction of Providence was partially funded by the US Department of Transportation to the tune of US$1.3M.
Biblia owns and operates a fleet of tugs and barges. It provides marine transportation, bed-levelling, agitation dredging, and dragging services on the US east coast, Gulf coast, and western rivers.
Its tugboat fleet includes William Breckinridge, Sara Kaitlin, John Parrish and Mary Bennett, and Biblia operates dredging barges Bed Leveler I and Bed Leveler II.
In New York state, a new utility workboat was delivered to serve Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. US National Park Service welcomed Annie Moore to its fleet to support operations and supply cargo to Ellis Island.
It was designed by New Orleans-based TAI Engineers and built by TAI and its subcontractor Aluma Marine, at facilities in Harvey, Louisiana. Annie Moore has a knuckle boom crane for loading and unloading palletised cargo.
In Virginia, patrol, fire and rescue craft builder Lake Assault Boats, headquartered in Superior, Wisconsin, has opened new facilities in Portsmouth for vessel repair, service and maintenance.
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