Meanwhile, on the Oasis of the Seas…. Photos in dry-dock.

[xavi90]

Amazing pics of the Oasis!!

Allure also will enter at dry dock in Cadiz next year?

[chengkp75]

Anyone know the purpose of the cable running from the aft of the ship (just above the waterline) that runs to some location off the picture to the right?

 

I would guess that it is a ground connection to provide an additional "earth" point for the electrical system, much like we have a separate copper ground wire to a ground rod in our homes.

 

I also notice that their is an additional hull penetration that is just aft of the four forward bow thrusters. Anyone know what that opening is for?

 

Ships operate with a "floating" ground, where the electrical system's ground is not attached to the hull, otherwise stray currents would flow through the hull causing corrosion.

 

During drydock, the ship will continue to run one of its generators, since they do not have a sufficiently large shore power connection to power all of the hotel functions. The ship will have a connection for cooling water inlet, and outlet on the hull, and the shipyard will supply water for cooling the generator, and the outlet hose will lead it away from the ship so the hull stays dry for painting.

 

My guess would be that it is a compressed air hose, which will go to a large manifold set up on the ship, and the yard workers will run a couple dozen air lines from this for their tools.

 

Yes, the smaller opening behind the thrusters is a "sea chest" or sea water inlet. Without knowing the Oasis' machinery layout intimately, I don't think it is for the desalination plant, as this would normally be further aft in the engine room. Same with the pool suction. I would suspect it is for cooling the hydraulics and motors of the bow thrusters, and possibly one of the fire pumps.

 

Those actually look like 2 meter high keelblocks, which are pretty tall by most standards. Lots of ships have 4-5 foot high blocks, so you are walking bent over underneath all the time. That's a real pain.

 

Depending on how big the ship is in regards to the drydock, I've seen the ship positioned by laser range finder or even a folding 2 meter ruler. Once the docking master believes the ship is close to position, a diver will go down and confirm that no major openings in the hull are covered by blocks, and when he comes up, they will start pumping the dock. As for getting the ship into the dock, they will stop using the ship's propulsion and thrusters once the bulbous bow crosses the threshold of the dock. At this point, the Captain relinquishes control of the vessel, and the shipyard assumes liability for any damages. They will connect mooring ropes to the ship, and the dock's winches will draw the ship in, and then be used to position it fore/aft and port/starboard.

[TamaLee]

Very interesting information!

[CRUISEFAN0001]

If you go and check out the ships webcams you can see some of the work being done.

Yup.

 

While they don't seem to be refreshing as often...at least a couple of them are still "turned on" (Boardwalk and Promenade both show construction going on...).

Edited October 2, 2014 by CRUISEFAN0001

[clochette]

great pictures

[CRUISEFAN0001]

Amazing pics of the Oasis!!

Allure also will enter at dry dock in Cadiz next year?

Yes - the schedule/manifest indicates Cadiz, Spain as the dry dock location at this time.

[springaussie]

Yes - the schedule/manifest indicates Cadiz, Spain as the dry dock location at this time.

 

Does Cadiz have a dry dock booking for Explorer of the Seas for March/April 2015?

Please share link if possible.

[mj]

Thanks for sharing these photos.

[twokids0204]

25 more days... Wooo Hooo....

[emeraldcity]

The keel blocks are prepositioned according to the "docking plan" of the ship. The blocks are typically made of concrete and are thus on the order of several thousand pounds each. The blocks would be placed using the cranes and when the ship comes into the drydock she is precisely placed in the dock using GPS or some other way.

 

Thank you for the detail ... I can't but help wonder at the strength of something so small, to hold up something so large.

[Clarea]

Thank you for the detail ... I can't but help wonder at the strength of something so small, to hold up something so large.

The ship's weight is distributed over many of the blocks.

[Grannycb]

I'm surprised there isn't more ship below the waterline.

[dancinman66]

Great pics

Wow that cherry picker looks tiny

 

Thanks for pics

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Clarea]

I'm surprised there isn't more ship below the waterline.

Only about 30 feet, but that area has the really heavy stuff, like the generators, fuel, water, etc.

[relaxatsea]

Thank you so much!

 

Great pictures and very interesting information!

[APDMOM]

Here are some from the webcams, which can be located here:

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/multimedia/webcam/ship.do?shipCode=OA&cameraLocation=%2Fcontent%2Fshared_assets%2Fwebcam%2FOA%2FGallery_1.jpg--Boardwalk

 

The Boardwalk yesterday:

 

The Boardwalk today:

 

The Promenade yesterday:

 

The promenade today:

[Tall-Cruiser]

chengkp75 - Thanks for the great feedback and insight you provided above.

 

OP - Thanks for sharing the great pictures.

Edited October 3, 2014 by Tall-Cruiser

[shellunderwater]

The ship's weight is distributed over many of the blocks.

 

So, I get it that the ship's keel is sitting on the blocks. But, what keeps the ship balanced to it doesn't tip over in dry dock? Are there beams/supports to the side of the dock? Are there other blocks under the ship supporting it further out to the sides? In the pictures of the bow and stern, I couldn't see either.

 

Thanks.

[gjkubel]

So, I get it that the ship's keel is sitting on the blocks. But, what keeps the ship balanced to it doesn't tip over in dry dock? Are there beams/supports to the side of the dock? Are there other blocks under the ship supporting it further out to the sides? In the pictures of the bow and stern, I couldn't see either.

 

Thanks.

 

Gravity. The same downward pressure to stop the ship from tipping over while at sea exists when its on the blocks. It like asking why a truck doesn't just tip over.

[chengkp75]

So, I get it that the ship's keel is sitting on the blocks. But, what keeps the ship balanced to it doesn't tip over in dry dock? Are there beams/supports to the side of the dock? Are there other blocks under the ship supporting it further out to the sides? In the pictures of the bow and stern, I couldn't see either.

 

Thanks.

 

There is one row of blocks down the centerline of the ship, and then there will be at least one row on each side towards the sides in the area of the flat bottom. These will not be present in the bow and stern areas since the hull is not flat there. In the first picture, you can see a small protrusion running along the hull at the point where the flat bottom turns into the vertical side, and this is the "bilge keel" which assists in minimizing rolling. The outer blocks will be in this area.

 

Actually, gravity works against the ship when sitting on the blocks, since the water supports the hull uniformly, while the blocks only provide point support. This is why the blocking diagram of where drydock blocks must be placed is so important, and is part of the ship's design from the naval architects. There will be two blocking diagrams, which will be used alternatively, so that the areas of the hull which are covered by the blocks at this docking, will be open at the next one, so they can be painted.

[chengkp75]

Interesting, back in my day we always shifted to shore power, cheaper and less requirements onboard. Would cause heck if that one generator went down the watch team was smaller because we could always shift if required

 

Most ships do in drydock. But a cruise ship still requires 4-6MW of power for hotel and engine room power even in drydock. Generally, when a cruise ship is in drydock, not only is the full crew onboard, but there will be a few hundred contractors living in guest cabins (upholsterers, carpet layers, those doing the teak decks, etc). These are not shipyard workers, they are subcontractors hired by the cruise line.

 

Generally, the cooling water can be used by any generator in the engine room (forward or aft), so you can use two or three, but only one at a time.

[bigharley]

We will be on the November 1st sailing, can't wait to see what the changes are.

[buckeye rob]

Amazing how small an area is below the waterline. Seems as if she would be easily top heavy.

[chengkp75]

Wish they gave us a picture of the starboard side. We would pull in shift to shore power on an aircraft carrier and 3000 people were set up. Reading ur posts I know you have been around awhile, but With over 20 years in the Navy I would bet good money she is on shore power, They build the ships there before they even have the generators ready so they have the power. And I have asked before about connections and they do have them available on the ship if the port has them but they don't use them because of cost and the other problems u know about. Hotel services are a lot easier to provide than construction.

 

Ah, but an aircraft carrier is not designed to make a profit. Therefore, they can build a shore power connection that can handle their hotel functions while the cruise ship would lose valuable space and incur additional cost for something that is used rarely. Also, Naval vessels tend to be in shipyard for much, much longer periods than commercial ships, so the shore power becomes more important. And during construction, there can be temporary connections that cannot be used during operations.

 

There are shore power connections, but their size is limited. Generally, only those ships that call in areas that require "cold ironing" for emissions reasons (California and Alaska) will have a shore power transformer to power the entire hotel load. Remember, most shipyards only supply 480v power, while the cruise ship uses 10,000v for major users like the A/C chillers, so a step up transformer of about 6MW is required. I don't believe that the Navy uses 10kv power. The ports that require cold iron operations will supply 10,000v power.

 

I have drydocked cruise ships twice, and both times we used the ship's generator and shore cooling water.

[Cindy]

Chengkp75, thanks for sharing your knowledge on this thread!