Portugal’s Navalrocha shipyard has completed a multi-million-euro repair and refit project on the 3D/4D seismic vessel Polarcus Naila for Dubai-based marine geophysical company Polarcus
The 33-day drydock project was completed in January, involving a broad package of work to the ultra-modern 14-streamer 3D/4D seismic vessel Polarcus Naila.
Based on the Ulstein SX124 design and delivered by Drydocks World Dubai in 2010, the 90-m X-Bow vessel is among the most advanced seismic vessels in the world.
Cooperation was key for the wide-ranging dry docking and repair project, according to Navalrocha commercial director Sergio Rodrigues. “The project involved five principal partners which operate at the Navalrocha shipyard base and a series of other specialist maritime firms, delivering a variety of mechanical, hydraulic, piping, steel work, blasting and painting as well as oil, fuel and ballast tank cleaning, carpentry and welding,” said Mr Rodrigues.
“Around 350 engineers were involved in the project which required careful management of high-value survey equipment,” he added.
Scope of the work involved repairs to four winches, replacement of a further two and installation of two others to enhance operational capability.
Notable was the use of robotic hydro-blasting under a new partnership with Cyprus-based Deme Marine that helped reduce time and manpower. The technology also ensured zero dust contamination or damage to seismic equipment, which can occur using more traditional slurry blasting techniques, said Navalrocha.
“A key reason Polarcus selected our yard was due to the scale of our graving docks,” said Mr Rodrigues. “The vessel required draught clearance of 2.5 m, dock floor to bottom of the vessel, to facilitate the main body of work involving the renewal of 12 box cooler units.” He added “The graving docks are also more suited to managing heavier vessels compared to floating docks.” Mr Rodrigues said this provides the shipyard with a significant advantage to competitors for repairs and refit projects involving seismic survey vessels and ships with similar dimensions such as OSVs, platform supply vessels and anchor handling tugs.
Polarcus Naila superintendent Danilo Latkovic said “The project involved a large volume of work with 140 small scale-plus larger individual jobs. Our decision to use Navalrocha shipyard was based on numerous factors including the accommodating our deep draft and block height demand. However, it was mostly driven by Navalrocha’s ability to fully focus its resources and facilities on our project. The scale of the yard means it does not manage multiple large projects at same time, which can be a shortfall in the case of larger yards.”
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