At its dock construction yard on the German North Sea coast, the GHH Sterkrade Division of M.A.N. recently launched a floating dock built for the Jeddah Ship Repair Yard in Saudi Arabia. The contract for this 19,000-ton dock was awarded to M.A.N.-GHH Sterkrade in 1979 by Messrs. Navelink S.A./Portugal, at a contract price of about DM 25 million (about $12.5 million), which includes towage and mooring. Bearing Yard No. 79, it is the 38th dock to be built by the company in the past 26 years.
The dock's length overall is 215 meters, outside width is 41.5 meters, clear inside width is 33.5 meters, molded depth of upper deck is 15.9 meters, and immersion depth over keel block is 7.55 meters.
The dock can be used for the drydocking of ships weighing up to 19,000 tons, which corresponds to about 60,000 dwt. Three longitudinal and five transverse bulkheads divide the bottom caisson into 24 watertight ballast tanks, which are evacuated by means of six M.A.N. bilge pumps of 3,000 cubic meters/hour unit capacity, lifting the dock with a 19,000-ton ship sitting on its keel blocks out of the water in about 90 minutes.
The dock was designed and built by M.A.N.-GHH Sterkrade according to the Rules under the survey of Lloyd's Register of Shipping.