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How Do You Stretch A Cruise Ship? — Parallax Forums

How Do You Stretch A Cruise Ship?

Ron CzapalaRon Czapala Posts: 2,418
in General Discussion
Pretty amazing undertaking...
http://www.wimp.com/how-do-you-stretch-a-cruise-ship/
When you need to fix a boat Blohm + Voss in Germany is one of the best places in the world to go. Since 1877, they’ve been building, repairing, and fixing boats for business and private sailors. With over 135 years of experience behind them, it makes sense they were asked to do the extension work on the MS Braemar cruise ship when it needed to be extended. How do you extend a cruise ship? Well, first you need to cut it in half. To see the entire process watch this time-lapse video of the staggering process behind stretching out a modern behemoth like this.

Comments

  • WBA ConsultingWBA Consulting Posts: 2,933
    Best timelapse ever!
  • Hal AlbachHal Albach Posts: 747
    I cannot even begin to fathom the amount of coordination of all the tasks involved. I also noticed there was no stream of sparks during the actual cutting, was it the water stream or were they using a different type of cutting torch than oxy-acetylene?.
    At any rate, this was truly a joy to watch. Thanks for sharing, Ron!
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    Yes, the building of the ships in the first place is a thing to behold.

    I did some work on the Costa Atlantica http://www.costacruise.com/usa/costa_atlantica.html somewhat bigger than the one we are looking at here. A matter of weeks before delivering the thing it has thousands of guys working all over it, installing windows, plumbing, electrics, floors, all the interior fittings. It looked like total chaos I could never imagine it would be finished on time. Then, as if by magic it was all done, shiny, pristine and new.

    Except there was one last little job that needed to be done, the angry Italian captain was shouting "I'm not taking this ship out until my cabin in finished". Who was doing that last little job? It was me. I was holding up delivery a billion dollar cruise ship!

    These boats are built in huge sections that are welded together in dry dock. So building a new section to splice into an existing ship is not so much a "stretch" of the imagination. Very impressive job anyway.

  • ercoerco Posts: 20,254
    edited 2015-11-26 23:07
    Very nice. Reminds me somewhat of the British R-101, the luxury cruise airship of 1929 which suffered an untimely fate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R101 Its development was hampered by bureaucratic interference at every turn, adding weight & decreasing lift (hydrogen volume). She barely flew as designed, so they had to cut it in half and add a center bay for more lift. Hopelessly behind schedule, it was rushed through airworthiness trials to meet grandiose and widely-publicized PR deadlines. It crashed & burned in Beauvais France on its maiden voyage to India, killing 48 of the 54 people on board. http://welweb.org/ThenandNow/R-101-2.html

    Bon Voyage and Viel Glück, Braemar! :)
  • RDL2004RDL2004 Posts: 2,554
    I know of a company that needed to expand, but apparently couldn't acquire any nearby land. They had an existing, fairly large two story facility, but the second floor was storage and not suitable for the heavy manufacturing equipment they wanted to install. So they cut the building in half, jacked the upper floor into place as a third floor and built what they needed in between. They were pretty proud of their problem solving solution.
  • Martin_HMartin_H Posts: 4,051
    Neat! I counted the day night cycles as best I could and it looks like it took 6 1/2 days start to finish.
  • skylightskylight Posts: 1,915
    Cutting the hull seems the easy bit as it just goes around but what about the cuts inside? shame they didn't show that also. or did they just use a giant hacksaw :)
  • Hal AlbachHal Albach Posts: 747
    "... or did they just use a giant hacksaw "
    I remember reading a Clive Cussler novel, I think it was 'Skeleton Coast', where a ship demolition saw, a very long heavy chain loop with cutting teeth, was used to cut ships into smaller chunks to flush out the hero hiding there. I think in the news one was used to cut the damaged end from a sunken submarine prior to lifting it to the surface.
  • Ron CzapalaRon Czapala Posts: 2,418
    Martin_H wrote: »
    Neat! I counted the day night cycles as best I could and it looks like it took 6 1/2 days start to finish.

    The description under the YouTube video said
    We filmed this 2 month operation with two dedicated MKtimelapse camera systems
    but who knows what that 2 months included such as fabricating the inserted section...

  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    So let me get this straight.

    You have this huge boat in dry dock. With your welding gun (whatever it is) you start to cut the thing in half.

    At some point you have a million tons of metal on one side and a million tons of metal on the other side.

    (Where "a million tons" means whatever it actually is)

    I'm not sure I want to be there when, near the end of the cut, the whole thing goes "ping"! And the two halves fly apart.




  • MikeDYurMikeDYur Posts: 2,176
    Maybe they start on the outside, and work to the center, monitoring laser levels. Looks like a visual description of a plasma torch. I seen a video once on how the USN assembles modern ship's through compartmentilization.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2015-11-27 22:39
    Well there is a thing.

    These big boats are put together from pre-built sections. Whole sections of boat can sit around rusting for months.

    Amazingly these huge pre-built sections come together, get welded up, and at the end of the day you cannot see a 1mm error between the parts.



  • RDL2004RDL2004 Posts: 2,554
    How to Build a Nuclear Submarine

    Too bad it's not in HD.
  • NWCCTVNWCCTV Posts: 3,629
    Hal, it looked like plasma cutter to me along with coolant. VERY COOL VIDEO!!!!
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