Day 4 - "Dr Boyd's heaven"

Day four of the trip was probably one of the most anticipated of all of them, as we would be visiting the CSIC Shipyard, which contains the largest dry dock in China, and is made up of four sections: Repair, Maintenance, Construction and Offshore Structures.

The first thing we had to contend with was the breakfast at the hotel, which consisted of something akin to a croissant that had been squashed and then deep fried, and then removed of all flavour; in addition there was a bun with weird stuff in it, and an egg. (I will state for the record, I am not the most adventurous of eaters, and hence any descriptions of food might be slightly negatively biased. However they are accurate.)

The trip to the shipyard was next, and for the first part we were all rather grateful. For all the previous trips, the organisers seemed to have forgotten that, as human beings, we all have legs, and hence are able to perform ambulatory motion to transport us from location A to location B. In other words, we can walk. Therefore whenever we had to go somewhere, regardless of how short the distance was, we would have a coach booked for us, which did seem rather unnecessary.

As I was saying, we were able to walk to the first part of the shipyard. As you may imagine, a large group of students in high-viz vests, safety boots and protective goggles attracted rather a lot of attention! The route we took was down what we termed "Danger Avenue", where the Lloyds' Register risk assessment man would have had a heart attack, as the number of unchecked hazards that we spotted was too large to be recalled!

A safety briefing followed our arrival at the CSIC building, where we were lectured at in Chinese about safety (or at least that's what we assume it was about) whilst Prof Tan translated. We then headed off to the repair and maintenance section.

The first part we saw was the docking of a ship as it arrived to be repaired. The first thing I noticed was that the Chinese do not seem to believe in fenders, and yet they brought the ship into port so gently they were not really necessary! It was around this time that the local wildlife claimed its first victim, in the form of Ben's arm which began to release a steady flow of blood directly after being bitten by some form of fly.

We then saw a ship already in an dry dock that was being repainted and maintained. The thing that really struck me was at the stern of the ship, and seeing just how big the propeller and rudder actually are on a ship! It reminded me of the rudder assignment we had earlier this year, where we designed a rudder in Solidworks, and at the time I remember having not entirely positive sentiments towards the assignment, as I believed that rudders could only be optimised to a certain point. However, upon seeing the pure scale of the rudder and the prop, it became apparent to me that these could be enormous sources of drag, and hence it truly is important to make them as efficient as possible.

Our next stop was the repair shed, where they were trying to fix a small Diesel engine from a small ship, amongst other items. We then returned to the outdoors and were able to board a Chinese dredger that was in dry dock, amongst two other similar vessels. From this point we were able to see the hull being painted, and the way in which safety on deck is implemented.

This then led to lunchtime, where we had what was one of the tastiest meals of my entire time here, with an amazing sweet and sour chicken, a great beef and pepper thing, and plenty of rice.

We had previously been told we'd be taken back to the hotel for a small rest, but instead we were taken to an office, where we were able to make the best of the limited facilities (desks and chairs), and Prof Tan's internet connection, in order to refresh ourselves, and learn what was happening in the UK general election. Needless to say, a lot was said about politics, but that's not the point of this blog, so I'll move on.

The afternoon was spent in the ship construction area. At this point I have to make a shout out to Dr Steve Boyd, Ship Science Professor at the University of Southampton. The shear number of times that his name was mentioned as we wandered up and down the various facilities and sections that he so lovingly described in his Ship Production course is a testament to his enthusiasm for steel storage areas, bending stations, cutting areas and the classic sub-section assembly areas.

It was really good to see what we had been learning about in our lectures applied in reality, and it seemed as though the entire shipyard was very similar to those that we designed in our Ship Production assignment. We then began to notice that a large number of the components that we saw being welded were very similar indeed to those we had worked on ourselves, and eventually we found ourselves face to face with the very same midship section that we had made ourselves out of wood, only scaled up slightly and made of steel! Whether the shipyard had hacked our phones and stolen the plans for these sections, or whether it happens to be pure coincidence, remains to be seen...

We were then shown the dry dock section, which also contained the two 80m high, 600 tonne capacity overhead cranes. Obviously this led to many group photos taken in front of the cranes from various angles, with Associate Prof Yeping assuming her "Power Pose" and encouraging us all to do the same (it's a low lunge, apparently it looks good in photos?)

The dry dock itself is very large, and has a moveable floor (according to one of the management team members, though I may have misunderstood him!). There was a large amount of activity there, including the lowering of cherry pickers into the dry dock, the painting of more ships, and the moving of large steel plates. The dock itself is sealed via a large float-able structure, that they float into position and pump water into it to make it sink into place, and then remove the water from inside the dock. Then to refill the dock they simply pump the water back in, pump the water out of the dock gate, and float it away. I was particularly interested in this, as it is the exact same technology used many years ago by Harland and Wolff, the Belfast shipyard company that made the Titanic. Interestingly, the only surviving White Star Line vessel (the company that owned the Titanic) is one of these dry dock gates, and it can be seen at the Titanic museum in Belfast, Northern Ireland (highly worth a visit! This is not a paid endorsement). It was also around this point that I recorded a short team update for the Southampton Hydro Team, which will be available on our facebook page after our return from China.

We were then walked back to the coach, where on the way we had the opportunity to talk with some of the shipyard employees. They all spoke excellent English, and the conversations we had with them were frank, honest and very interesting, and provided us all with a new insight into how shipyards are run.

Upon our return to the hotel, we were given 15 minutes to have a quick shower and change clothes, before heading to the "First Pass Under Heaven" which is where there was a tunnel through the Great Wall. However, this was clearly a major tourist attraction, and as such the entire wall section had been rebuilt and modernised. To me, this made it feel rather like Epcot at DisneyWorld in Florida, where everything feels like a movie set, and whilst it might be a true representation of what it used to be like, it felt too new and modern, and more like a tourist trap than an actual historical monument. To this end, some of us may have left the main group and explored the more urban areas surrounding the pass, and got some very strange looks from some of the locals!

As far as this trip is concerned, I think it will be hard to top the visit to the Shipyard. As Ship Science students, we are all intrinsically fascinated by most things that float, and to see them go from separate component parts through to a completed item (admittedly in the space of a day, and only by seeing the interim stages) was truly one of the most beneficial things that this trip could have imparted. The trip to the University laboratories was interesting, and talking to the different students was good, but nothing could compare to our child-like joy at seeing those things that we study and examine every day in theory in the classroom, brought to life.