In a recent show they painted a gigantic tanker ship.
The lowered it onto blocks and then cleaned and painted the hull.
I have seen this done before on other TV shows and have always wondered: how do they clean and paint under the blocks, or do they just not do it?
They never mention moving the ship and repositioning the blocks, which may not be feasible because the blocks must be in certain positions determined when the ship was designed and built.
Does anybody know??
the show invites inquires, its a good question.
perhaps the lift boxes are moved slightly at each drydock, so what doesnt get painted at one drydock , gets done and a different time
Maybe, but how do you lift a 900 foot tanker or 1100 foot carrier?
The blocks are positioned in the dry dock ahead of time. Water fills it, the ship is placed in it with tugs, doors close and water is pumped out. Cleaning the small areas can be done by divers, but painting is another issue.
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Don't have to lift it far- just enough to jam in another set of blocks a few feet away, and then pull out the first set. In AHR terms, like wedging a centerline beam to level a floor or replace a rotted lally column. And like a house, a ship can flex some, otherwise mother nature would shred it in short order in heavy seas. And if you have blocks at every frame point, you could probably go down the line pulling one at a time with little risk.
Leastways, that is how it was explained to me once.
My brother was an engineer and was a project leader for ship overhauls for the Navy in San Diego. They did not lift ships. Each ship had a layout for the support blocks and they were placed within a tolerance of inches in the drydock. It may be possible to add and replace as you state, but there is nothing to lift a large ship.
I can't ask him about it though, he passed on a few years ago. He could have given us details.
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