Workers at Austal USA in Mobile began construction on a floating dry dock for the U.S. Navy. Construction is being done on the shipbuilder’s new steel production line.
The steel line opened in 2022, alongside the company’s facilities for building aluminum-hulled ships.
“This dry dock will be a first for Austal, but we’re up to the challenge,” said Dave Growden, Austal’s vice president for new construction. “Our talented shipbuilders are always ready for whatever we require of them, whether it’s the fourth ship in a multi-ship program or the first of a new design.”
The new project is a “Rennie”-type floating dry dock with continuous wing walls and sectional pontoons. Austal adds, “It has a 18,000 LT lifting capacity and a clear deck working area of 90,800 square feet. The craft has an overall length of 694 feet, overall pontoon breadth of 157 feet, and a height of 65 feet from baseline to wing deck.”
Austal notes that it also incorporates “features to improve operability and maintainability based on Austal USA’s experience and lessons learned from owning, operating and maintaining a similar dry dock at its Mobile, Alabama, ship repair facility.”
