Carnival Cruise Line said it will hire a heavy lift vessel
used in the oil and gas industry to enable repairs on the Carnival Vista's
underperforming azipod units.
The Boka Vanguard, built in 2012 and operated by the Dutch
specialty shipping firm Boskalis, is the largest vessel of its type in the
world, capable of transporting equipment of up to 117,000 tons.
Carnival will use the ship as a floating dry dock to pick up
the Vista on its platform and transport it to Grand Bahama Island, where
repairs will occur.
The Boka Vanguard is a bowless ship with a flat 230-by-920
foot watertight deck. The ship's tanks will be filled with seawater to submerse
it so that the Carnival Vista can be towed over it. Then the tanks will be
evacuated, raising the Vista onto the Boka Vanguard's platform.
The Boka Vanguard is expected to arrive in Bahamian waters
on July 5 to prepare for Carnival Vista's arrival on July 12. The loading,
transport and repairs are expected to take approximately two weeks, allowing
Carnival Vista to return to Galveston in time for its July 27 voyage, Carnival
said.
The Carnival Vista's azipod propulsion motors will have all
of the bearings replaced while it is out of service. Carnival turned to the
novel solution because the drydock it would normally use at the Grand Bahama Shipyard
was damaged in April by a crane collapse. The cranes were attempting a repair
on the Oasis of the Seas, which also needed work on its azipods.
In 2013, Costa Cruises obtained a $30 million option on the
Boka Vanguard for possible use in refloating the sunken Costa Concordia in
Italy, but the option expired when Costa decided on a different method of
raising it.