Drydock

The assembly of large sections of the ship is now mainly carried out in the dry dock of yards.

Earlier shipyards have the ships built on the slipway, which were supplied by Helge crane or from a cable crane with load capacities of one to ten tons with either light shipbuilding parts, such as steel plates, frames or stringers. Coupled by traverses higher weights could be transported. The slipway of the former Mathias -Thesen -Werft, today Nordic Yards (formerly Wadan Yards, Aker MTW Werft ) in Wismar could, for example, with trusses carry about 50 tons of heavy parts.

Due to the increasing prefabrication in protected shipbuilding halls, the individual components were too large and too heavy for this method. In the development Helge cranes as at Blohm & Voss and Thyssen Nordsee Werke were used, which could also coupled through trusses carry heavier components. To still be able to handle larger and heavier components, portal cranes were used, which run via designated as dry dock dry dock. This was necessary as larger ships were always to build with short lead times. These major components were assembled into sections. Examples in Germany for the Department of Manufacturing in building docks are the Meyer Werft and the shipyards in Wismar and Warnemünde.

• See also Shipbuilding