China: Wuchang Shipyard Delivers Shenqianhao Vessel to Shanghai Salvage

Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry has completed the construction of Shenqianhao, China’s biggest submersible-support vessel and handed it over to its operator at a ceremony held on Monday in Qingdao, Shandong province, China Daily disclosed citing relevant officials.

The 13,000-ton vessel, encompassing the length of 125 meters, embodies the country’s most cutting edge submersible-support vessel intended for deep-water salvage operations, cleansing oil spills, ocean resource exploration and providing response in case of maritime incidents.

According to director of Shanghai Salvage Co., operator of the vessel, Mr. Shen Hao, Shenqianhao is outfitted with a deep-water saturation diving system enabling a diving team of 12 members to reach a depth of 300 meters, one hundred meters more than before.

“Divers can work for 28 days straight with the support of the system,” Shen said, adding that various innovations have been incorporated in the design of the vessel aimed at tackling the technical problems of saturation diving at considerable depths.

The widely used deep-water saturation diving system, which incorporates various life support facilities, allows divers to carry out their underwater activities without interruptions for long periods of time, ruling out the possibility of decompression sickness.

Moreover, the ship also has a helicopter landing platform and a 140 ton lifting capacity crane intended for bringing out the sunken wrecks from the sea bed.

With the latest addition to its salvage fleet, China has made a great breakthrough in development of deep-water salvage vessels and now aims to push the limits even further with the objective of developing saturation diving technology that will enable divers to plunge 500 meters below the water surface.

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Subsea World News Staff , August 07, 2012;  Image: CD