It’s like a jigsaw puzzle in steel

Here’s a time-lapse video of the construction of Aida Cruises’ new flagship, AIDAPrima, in Japan.  The ship entered service in April this year. Watch in full-screen mode, and set the resolution to 2160p/4K (using the gearwheel icon at the foot of the video), for best results.

Looking at how they lower the engines and other major components into position, it’s clear they don’t expect to remove them during the life of the ship.  They’d have to dismantle the vessel around them to get them out!

Peter

6 comments

  1. Actually, to replace major components like engines, generators, etc. we just cut a big ol' hole in the ship, do the swap, and weld it all back together.
    Sometimes the side of the ship, sometimes above, but it's a pretty traumatic sight to see your ship "wounded" like that.
    Weld it all back, grind it flush, cover with paint, and a couple of months later you'd never know there was anything done.

    – Charlie

  2. That gets REALLY scary when you are talking about two 6ft by 10ft holes through inches-thick high-yield steel in the side of a submarine hull….

    We were getting some new major gear added during a shipyard period in Pearl Harbor…

    Welded up everything was fine.

  3. I spent months in aggregate planning equipment removal routes working on a couple big ships. You'd be surprised. But sometimes people don't bother. So you cut through the sideshell of a boat that's only been in service 2 months to remove a thruster that was defective from the factory. The cost of repainting the potable water tank was as much as the steel work.

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