Florida-headquartered Carnival Cruise Line has contracted the Dutch marine engineering company Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. to lift its cruise ship Carnival Vista out of the water onto the world’s largest heavy lift ship, Boka Vanguard, and transport it to Grand Bahama shipyard for a dry docking operation.
The operation, the first of its kind in the world, will take place in the coming weeks in Freeport, Bahamas. The BOKA Vanguard is the world’s largest semi-submersible ship uniquely positioned to lift and transport extremely heavy cargoes in a dry and safe manner.
Carnival Vista is the second largest cruise ship in the Carnival fleet with a capacity of nearly 4,000 passengers and a length in excess of 300 meters. Due to technical issues with Carnival Vista’s azipods, the ship’s main propulsion system, the vessel must be repaired in a dry dock which is currently not available in the region.
Boskalis offers a unique solution to facilitate this dry dock repair by deploying the world’s largest semi-submersible heavy lift vessel BOKA Vanguard. Carnival Vista will be loaded onto the BOKA Vanguard off the coast of Freeport, Bahamas. This loading and lifting operation is planned to take place between 12 and 14 July.
The BOKA Vanguard will then safely transport Carnival Vista to a nearby shipyard facility where the repairs will take place whilst the cruise ship is resting on the BOKA Vanguard. Upon completion of the repairs, Carnival Vista will be offloaded in time for its next cruise voyage later this month.
