Kuehne+Nagel (K+N) has delivered a 17,300-tonne floating drydock from Yalova, Türkiye to San Diego, USA.
According to K+N, it is the largest floating drydock ever built in Türkiye, measuring 253 m x 54 m x 21 m. “We had checklists. Then we had checklists for the checklists: every smallest detail accounted for, nothing left to chance,” said Aliye Erkan Bıyık, national project logistics manager at Kuehne+Nagel.
American shipbuilding and repair firm General Dyanmics NASSCO contracted K+N for the project. “For our team, the project began the moment the mooring ropes securing the drydock to the dock were released,” added Erkan Bıyık.
Four tugboats pulled the drydock and positioned it at the stern of the semi-submersible heavy lift ship BOKA Vanguard, owned by maritime services provider Boskalis. BOKA Vanguard is 275 m long and was recently widened by 10.3 m to over 80 m.
Securing of the drydock took three days, before embarking on its 13,500-nautical-mile journey, crossing both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The size of BOKA Vanguard meant that it could not pass through the Panama Canal.
Last month, HLPFI reported that K+N had appointed a new chief information officer along with a new global head of sales.
