Cruise News - Maritime News

Early Saturday morning, July 13, Carnival Vista took off from Freeport and headed to sea to meet the ship Boka Vanguard. It is no ordinary ship as Boka Vanguard is a submersible vessel tasked with the challenge of raising the 133,500 GT liner out of the water so that all necessary repairs can be done.

Carnival Vista undergoes one of the most unique drydocks as Carnival Cruise Line deals with propulsion issues that have plagued the vessel in recent weeks. After having to alter a number of itineraries due to azipod problems that impacted the cruising speed of the vessel, Carnival Vista was able to address the issue this weekend.

The dry dock is a first-ever for the cruise industry and was necessitated by the limited dry dock space at Grand Bahama Shipyard.

Grand Bahama Shipyard, Freeport, Grand Bahamas, which would be used for such repairs is dealing with the damage done when a crane collapsed atop Royal Caribbean's Oasis Of The Seas, so an alternate plan had to be considered using a first-of-its-kind “floating dry dock” created by Boskalis, who specializes in finding solutions to complicated marine-based problems.

Carnival Cruise Line said in a statement:

“The Carnival Vista azipod repair is underway off the shore of Freeport, Bahamas. Carnival Vista has been loaded onto the Boka Vanguard and will be lifted and transported back to the Grand Bahamas Shipyard Saturday evening for work to begin.”