The Changjiang Ship Design Institute has designed China’s first mid-sized multifunctional oil spill recovery ship, which got new product acceptance from the Hunan Defense Science and Technology Industry Bureau. It was built by the Yiyang Zhonghai Shipyard. This ship means an improvement in the response time and handling capacity of China’s maritime sector in the case of oil spills in waterways and fills a gap in oil recovery ship building in the country.

The new mid-sized ship has a twin-hull purpose-built design for the Yangtze River. It will be used to deal with pollution prevention and controls in the river basin and raise the emergency equipment response capacity of ships and improve the emergency planning. The lift-type oil skimmer system can be dismounted and avoids direct contact with the hull, while remaining connected, for simpler construction purposes and easy adjustment of the guide rail so that it doesn’t distort the hull structure. There is an anti-explosive floating oil-water interface display on the ship to control oil film thickness for the recovery tank and increase recovery efficiency. It also has a photoelectric tracking system for cleaning to monitor oil spills, based on past experience with oil spill ships in inland rivers. Oil spill videos can be transmitted to the Maritime Affairs Bureau for study via an integrated information system on the ship. All the technical indices comply with the Mid-sized Multifunctional Oil Spill Recovery Ship in Inland Rivers document, regulations of the Maritime Safety Administration of China, according to the China Classification Society’s Changsha Inspection Office.

A committee of experts said that the ship has a novel design and advanced structure and functions and is the first inland river multifunctional oil spill recovery ship and qualifies for new-product status.

Photo: Changjiang mid-sized multifunctional oil spill recovery ship