Dry Dock Vessel Gives Carnival Cruise Ship a Lift

The 1,055-foot, 133,500-gross-ton cruise ship Carnival Vista was recently loaded onto another ship—the heavy-lift dry-dock vessel BOKA Vanguard—for dry dock repairs in Freeport, Bahamas.

By Soundings Editors

Just like any ordinary recreational boat, ships need occasional maintenance, though the scale of those routine repairs is obviously exponentially larger. So, what’s a ship to do when it needs a lift? Well, you load it onto another ship, of course.

That’s exactly what happened a couple of days ago when Carnival Cruise Lines Carnival Vista was loaded onto the 902-foot by 230-foot BOKA Vanguard, the world’s largest semi-submersible heavy lift ship. In a 12-hour procedure, the dry dock vessel loaded aboard the Carnival Vista for a short trip to Freeport, Bahamas, for maintenance on her azimuth pod drives. This video shows the delicate docking procedure from start to finish.