Shipment of semi-submersible ship as wide as two football fields

China on January 19 completed the assembly and delivery of its second largest semi-submersible cargo ship in Guangdong province.

China's second largest semi-submersible ship shipped. Video: Flying Dumplings

Built by Guangzhou International Shipbuilding Company (GSI), the ship named Xin Yao Hua has a total length of up to 225 m and a width of 57 m, of which the loading and unloading deck is 210 m long and 52 m wide. equal to the area of ​​two standard football fields.

This is a semi-submersible heavy cargo ship with a draft of 30.5 m (the depth at which the ship is submerged). It has a design payload of 80,000 tons.

Xin Yao Hua uses four sets of main thrusters and two auxiliary thrusters in the bow and stern. They are operated by 6 diesel generator sets with a capacity of 4,500 kW. The ship is also equipped with the most advanced dynamics navigation system such as DGPS, laser and radar, allowing it to travel at a speed of 14.5 knots, equivalent to 26.8 km/h, and perform high-precision missions at sea with an error of only 5 cm.

With more than 9,000 automatic control points on board, its malfunctions can be detected in time and handled remotely.

Semi-submersible heavy ships are mainly used to transport huge integral equipment such as drilling rigs, oil and gas extraction modules, large wind turbines and even other ships. Xin Yao Hua is currently China's second largest semi-submersible ship, just behind Xin Guang Hua, also built and handed over by GSI in 2016.