Original subtitles

In this episode...

In my opinion, there's no other vessel like this in the world.

...the planet's largest heavy lift ship...

We can carry the Eiffel Tower

and the Statue of Liberty at the same time.

This is absolutely

a game changing piece of engineering.

...and the groundbreaking innovations from the past...

Whoo!

For something 60 years old,

this is really, really incredible.

This was the first system of this kind in the world.

It's totally unique.

...that make the impossible possible.

Captions by vitac... www.vitac.com

captions paid for by discovery communications

The world's oceans are home to some of mankind's

most extraordinary engineering achievements.

Out at sea, the megastructure is king.

And ships, oil rigs, and floating factories

are all growing to an unprecedented scale.

But these oversized objects present engineers

with a giant challenge.

What happens when they need to be moved?

Marine engineer Michele Seij is part of the team

designing a solution.

The structure for this industry

are the biggest in the world that need to be transported.

In front of us, you can see an oil rig

which is operating around the globe

and is difficult to move by itself.

The cargoes that we have to transport are,

in some cases, five times as heavy as this platform.

They need to be transported a distance of over 10,000 miles.

That's a trip about half around the world.

In order to transport these cargoes,

we need to build unique piece of engineering

that's bigger and more capable

than anything presently available.

But now...

...there is an answer.

This is the Boka vanguard.

This is absolutely a game changing

piece of engineering.

She carries some of the largest machinery built on the planet...

Hundreds and thousands of tons, she carries on her back.

And she carries it for thousands and thousands of miles.

And the way this vessel pulls it off

has to be seen to be believed.

The Boka vanguard can deliberately sink itself.

By submerging below the surface,

the vanguard can load cargo of a truly astonishing size.

She's absolutely amazing.

Everything on this ship

is different from the standout vessel.

Then the Boka vanguard

does something even more extraordinary.

It rises from the depths

and plucks its mega cargo from the sea.

It's unbelievable if you start thinking about

a vessel like this that you're actually able

to lift cargoes out of the water

that are weighing over 100,000 tons or even more.

At 902 feet long and 230 feet wide,

the Boka vanguard is the world's largest heavy lift ship.

Onboard is a 12-story superstructure

that contains the bridge and living quarters.

It's four 90-foot buoyancy towers

can be reconfigured for unique loads

and it can sink 66 feet below the waterline

before lifting massive cargo weighing up to 120,000 tons.

In order for vanguard to deliver

the planet's largest cargo around the globe,

engineers have had to solve a series of problems.

How can a vessel sink and reemerge at will

while lifting unprecedented weight?

We had to change our traditional designs

and come up with something totally new

to move cargoes that no other vessel in the world can move.

What does it take to maneuver this monster machine

through the world's most dangerous seas?

She has to go around the horn of Africa, which is some of

the most treacherous waters on the planet.

And how does the crew of this prized megastructure

protect it from disaster?

So the worst case scenario

is damage to the hull of the vessel,

flooding of the vessel, and sinking of the vessel.

First mate Rudolph Limanis and the crew are regularly faced

with these seemingly impossible challenges.

We can see, actually, another is standing there,

and you obviously cannot use any kind of crane

for lifting this thing out of the water.

It's too big, too heavy.

There are no cranes in the world

that can lift something as big as this.

The other option might be towing.

So use tugboats and just tell them wherever they need to be,

but it means that it takes a lot longer time for us.

And it also might be more dangerous.

The weather can be perilous outside.

And if this structure like this is being towed,

it means that she's out there in any kind of weather.

There might be storms or high waves.

So this is when the submerging of the vessel comes into play.

But is it possible to sink

and then raise an enormous vessel

and its cargo at the flick of a switch?

To find out, the vanguard's engineers

will need to look to the past.

On the shores of the Gulf of Mexico...

Are we ready?

Okay. Gonna start.

...marine engineer Krijn Haasnoot

is rallying his crew for an off-shore adventure.

What we basically do is that we install rocks on the seabed.

Today, the tideway rollingstone

is used in pipe laying operations,

but she has a hidden past.

Everything behind me was not there

before the conversion in 1994.

From here to the casings,

it was all just flat deck.

When it was built in 1979,

this ship changed the world.

This was the super servant I,

the first ever large scale heavy lift ship.

Capable of sinking at will,

she could lift loads heavier than anything

that had come before.

And the bones of this vessel hold the key

to how the Boka vanguard works.

The whole deck was empty so they could take

as much cargo as possible.

You can see we put a lot of equipment there,

but the structure is still the same.

If you know where to look,

you can see the structure of the old super servant

all over the boat.

First mate Floris Zeijlmaker

is on the hunt for the tell tale signs

of historic engineering innovation.

By filling 24 huge tanks in her hull with water,

the super servant was able to sink its deck

21 feet below the surface.

This allowed cargo to float directly above it.

Before the tanks were emptied, buoyancy increased

and the payload lifted from the water.

The secret behind this game changing system

lies below deck.

The super servants' compressors were capable of pumping

over 88,000 cubic feet of water

in and out of the hull every hour,

allowing the ship to achieve the seemingly impossible.

The now-converted super servant led the way

for a new form of heavy lift ship,

and few know of its trailblazing past.

We, as a crew, are very proud

to work and live on this vessel with such an amazing history.

Super servant was one of

the most innovative ships in the world.

The Boka vanguard is almost seven times

the size of the super servant

and can lift many times the weight.

It's the largest semi-submersible lift ship

ever built.

All thanks to a supersized version

of the technology used on the super servant,

which is hidden in one of Boka vanguard's

most hard to reach locations.

We're at the top of one of the buoyancy casings.

There's very few people get to come up here.

When megastructures need to be moved

across the world's oceans,

it calls for engineering on an epic scale.

This is the "Boka vanguard,"

the biggest heavy lift ship on the planet.

And it's no ordinary vessel.

The vanguard has the astonishing ability

to sink itself below the surface of the sea

before lifting its giant floating cargoes

straight out of the water.

Yes? Okay, copy that.

Start the ballast down. Thank you.

Onboard, engineers rely on cutting edge technology

to help pull off this complex procedure.

This is the main console on these monitors here.

We can see all our ballast system,

the piping, the pumps.

These blocks, they represent our ballast tank.

Total 96.

Each ballast tank is connected with a valve.

And on these screens here,

we can open and close the valves as needed.

When the valves are open, the water is flowing in.

The vanguard's 96 ballast tanks

can take on more than 52 million gallons of water,

allowing her to lift weights heavier

than any vessel has ever been capable of before.

So in the beginning, when I start my operation,

most of the tanks are empty.

We start pumping water from outside of the vessel

through the ballast system that goes all around the vessel.

By deliberately flooding the hull,

the vanguard's deck is submerged

to as deep as 66 feet below the surface.

As these tanks are being filled one by one,

the vessel is going more and more underwater.

And then when we have reached our target draft,

we just close the tanks, stop the flow of the water,

and then the vessel is in the position.

But the sinking is only the first phase

of this incredible exercise.

Superintendent Don Kemler is responsible for maneuvering

the massive floating megastructures

above the vanguard's deck.

The seas, they don't care what your cargo weighs

and they will move it around quite easily.

The stakes can be quite high

because everything that we're moving

is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

And the biggest issue that you have with the largest weights,

when you've got a 100,000 ton cargo is momentum.

The faster something is moving, the harder it is to stop it.

And if you can't stop it in time,

then you run the risk of causing damage

to either the cargo or the vessel itself.

The solution to keeping

these gigantic structures under control...

See, an elevator would've been much easier.

Whew.

...Can be found in a spot

that few get to experience on this extraordinary vessel.

We're at the top of one of the buoyancy casings.

There's very few people get to come up here.

Not only is the view spectacular,

this off-limits location

holds the key to helping avert disaster.

This is one of our cargo winches.

We have two of these on every one of these casings.

The winches are specifically to pull, in a controlled manner,

the cargo above the deck.

We will have this line down on one of our work boats,

which will then run the line out and attach to the cargo.

Often we find ourselves, especially with this vessel,

working with loads anywhere upwards of 100-110,000 tons.

So these winches are capable

of putting on a tremendous amount of force on these objects

and able to move them quite easily through the water.

It's a technique that allows the crew

to precisely maneuver

the giant structures into position,

reducing the risk of collision.

I'm in communications with all the winch operators.

And I will say, "heave up on line one,"

and he will heave up on his.

Or I can give him specific directions,

"heave up one meter."

And maybe I'm telling the other winch

to slack one meter.

And that's how we can control it and move really slowly.

Every time we do one of these projects,

or one of these operations,

it never ceases to amaze me

how impressive and how awe-inspiring it is.

We could not do our job without these winches.

Thanks to the vanguard system,

96 ballast tanks, four buoyancy casings,

and 10 winches,

she can achieve the incredible feat

of sinking below the surface of the sea

and safely moving giant payloads above her deck.

But this act of deliberate sinking

is just one piece of the puzzle.

It will take even more ingenious engineering to pull off

this seemingly impossible exercise.

This is a very huge scale operation.

Using 96 ballast tanks,

four buoyancy casings, and 10 winches,

the Boka vanguard can sink below the surface of the sea

and safely move heavy cargo above her deck.

But that's not all this heavy lift ship can do.

First mate Rudolph Limanis oversees the next step...

Lifting the massive cargo out of the water.

When we look out of this window during the cargo operations,

we only see the casings kind of sticking out from the water.

And then we see this huge structure.

When somebody asks how big is it, I say,

"well, imagine a 10, 12 story building."

At the final stage of the loading,

you just see a wall here of whatever cargo there is.

To finally land the monster payload

onto her deck,

what goes down must now come up.

So after the cargo is in position,

everything is confirmed. My pumps are running.

Then I open the valves to the tanks

that I need to de-ballast.

The water is being pumped out from the tanks

outside of the vessel.

This way, the buoyancy is increased

and the vessel comes out of the water.

As the vessel rises, it can lift up to 120,000 tons.

But as project manager Ronald Goetheer knows,

when you're carrying a massive megastructure,

entering the confined space of a port is a tricky proposition.

Not all ports are happy

to receive this vessel,

especially not with the large cargo

because it scares them off.

It's not a usual vessel. It's not the usual size.

Because of these challenges,

it's important that this vessel can sail

halfway around the world without stopping.

Lead engineer Andrii Kurochkin

maintains the machinery

that makes these voyages possible.

That's equivalent to the horsepower

of eight freight trains.

These powerful engines allow the vanguard

to achieve the unthinkable on each and every voyage.

To complete these global missions,

captain Oleg Maryasov

must maneuver the vanguard and her payload

across the world's most dangerous seas.

That the vessel carries a big and massive cargoes.

The wind chart is very high

and adverse weather conditions with strong winds,

the winds can stop the vessel and swing the vessel.

It's like a big sail,

and different winds blow through this sail against

and stop the vessel.

We have a time frame to deliver the cargo from the one port

to another port.

Definitely lost speed, we lost time,

and cannot deliver the cargo in time.

So during the operation,

the captain must keep everything under control.

The answer to keeping the vanguard

moving in all types of weather

may lie with the pioneers of the past.

For something 60 years old,

this is really, really incredible.

The Boka vanguard,

the largest heavy lift ship in the world.

This game changing semi-submersible vessel

can deliberately sink itself before rising

to lift and transport the largest cargo on the planet.

The vanguard can fill

her 52 million gallon capacity ballast tanks

at a rate of over five tons per second

and submerge six stories below the waterline.

She's kept afloat by four 92 foot tall towers

filled partially with air.

But out on the open sea,

there is an ever present risk of high winds

that could swing and even stop the massive vessel

in its tracks.

Could the answer to keeping the vanguard moving,

whatever the weather, lie with the pioneers of the past?

The river Rhine in Germany.

Mechanical engineer Aoife Considine

has traveled to this landmark waterway

to get her hands on a piece of aquatic engineering history.

Ready for this?

This is just incredible!

Whoo!

So you got 17 tons of vessel here out of 15 meters.

I mean, you can just see the wake going at the back.

For something 60 years old,

this is really, really incredible.

In 1963, engineer Josef Becker

launched the Forrelle,

a pioneering boat designed to solve a problem.

Now, in a conventional boat system,

when you have a separate propeller and rudder,

you have to have forward movement and momentum

before the boat can actually even start to turn.

For a boat such as this that is 15 meters long

and it weighs about 17 tons,

you are gonna have a tough time

navigating around tight inlets.

It's actually quite difficult to maneuver.

What Becker came up with

allowed the Forrelle to move on the water

in a way that had previously been impossible.

He managed to combine both the propulsion of the boat

with the maneuverability in a 360 degree rudder propeller.

On conventional vessels,

thrust and steering are separated,

meaning changes in direction are delayed.

By integrating rudder and propeller

into a single unit, reactions are instantaneous.

The way it works is the engine,

which is the main powerhouse, that provides the energy

down the driveshaft towards the back of the boat,

which then does a 90-degree turn going downwards,

a second 90-degree turn, and then that actually leads

straight onto the rudder propeller,

which provides both

your horizontal degree of axis turning

for your maneuverability

and also has a propeller turning at the same time.

Becker's innovative system was the perfect solution

for improving the agility of boats.

Now, to try and do this kind of maneuver in a conventional boat,

you have the propeller on the rudder, both separate,

so it isn't that instantaneous movement

that we're having right now.

So how it actually works,

if you look at these gauges here,

your arrows point in the direction of travel.

So say, for instance, we wanted you to turn right quite quickly.

All we'd do is turn the wheel twice for 45 degrees

and already you can see the boat is moving.

And actually what's happening is as I turn this wheel,

the propeller underneath the boat is mimicking that movement

and allowing for that instantaneous

change of direction.

Turn it two more times again.

And as you can see, the dial is moving with me,

which is exactly what's happening with that propeller

to be able to push us in this clockwise direction.

And it really is just that simple.

The rudder propeller allowed for control

and maneuverability previously thought impossible.

So let's spin this girl around

and see what she's got.

It really does just react immediately

to what you're doing.

The boat is literally spinning on its own axis.

Becker's invention is now the standard

on ships around the globe.

On the vanguard, chief engineer Andrii Kurochkin

has access to a supersized version

of Becker's innovative technology.

Manufactured in China...

...each propeller measures just over nine feet across

and is precisely engineered from copper alloy.

The massive props are housed inside a cast steel pod,

allowing them to rotate 360 degrees,

just like on Josef Becker's Forrelle.

But the versions found on the vanguard

have an extra trick up their sleeve.

Normally stored inside the hull to reduce drag,

the vanguard's rudder propellers are deployed

using giant hydraulic rams

capable of turning through

a full 360-degree range of motion.

They provide the thrust required to counteract wind and waves

that could push the ship off course.

For captain Oleg, the rudder propellers are key

for maneuvering the vanguard.

So let's say if the wind blows from his starboard side,

the vessel has tendency to go to the port side.

To prevent that,

we use the thrusters.

We turn it to the starboard side

and increase the pitch on the propellers.

The vessel will go to the starboard side

against the wind.

They give us additional power and help keep the heading

against the winds and waves.

But in order to safely deliver

these super-sized structures, the vanguard must be protected

from the risk of a collision at sea.

So the worst case scenario is

damage to the hull of the vessel,

flooding of the vessel, sinking of the vessel.

The key to avoiding catastrophe

lies in one ancient shipbuilding method

that played a revolutionary role in improving safety at sea.

This is the Boka vanguard,

a one of a kind ship of record-breaking proportions.

She's capable of feats that no other vessel can achieve.

Transporting impossibly massive payloads

over tens of thousands of miles.

Measuring in at 902 feet long and 230 feet wide,

the vanguard has enough deck space

to carry the Eiffel Tower

and enough lifting capacity

to carry the weight of 10 of the iconic French landmark.

But as captain Oleg knows,

when you're transporting the planet's largest cargo,

sustaining a collision on the journey

could be catastrophic.

Any case of collision is very serious.

The worst case scenario is damage to the hull of the vessel

flooding of the vessel, and sinking of the vessel.

To prevent disaster,

the vanguard's designers must look to

the maritime pioneers of the past.

In Shanghai, China.

Professor Xiao Yinjie is on his way

to uncover the secret behind one of the most iconic

and influential vessels in maritime history,

the Chinese junk.

First appearing on the water more than 2,000 years ago,

the junk's immediately recognizable spined sails

and sleek shape marked a huge step forward

in shipbuilding technology.

But arguably, its most important design feature

helped solve a problem

that had been plaguing Chinese sailors.

Early vessels had one large compartment below deck

so any water that entered would fill the hull and sink the ship.

In order to avoid this fate,

engineers went back to the drawing board.

It's a solution that helped redefine

maritime engineering for generations

and will prove critical

to keeping the Boka vanguard afloat.

The only way to see this hidden innovation

is to head below deck.

Dividing the junk into multiple watertight segments

offers two crucial benefits.

The lateral divides make the hull more rigid,

giving greater structural strength.

And in the event of a collision,

water can only fill one compartment,

preventing the ship from sinking.

Introduced on the Chinese junk hundreds of years

before it caught on in the west,

the bulkhead revolutionized shipbuilding.

The introduction of bulkheads allowed junks

to sail the oceans in safety for thousands of years,

influencing ships of all shapes and sizes along the way.

And today, the vanguard's engineers

have taken this Chinese concept

and implemented it on an enormous scale.

For thousands of years,

the watertight bulkhead technology of Chinese junks

has kept countless ships around the globe safe at sea.

This ancient technique is considered a great invention

in the history of ship making,

and it's been incorporated into the Boka vanguard's design.

There's a lot of awkward spaces down there.

It's really tight.

So when we climb down,

take care not to injure yourself.

Chief officer Rudolph Limanis

is leading engineer Michele Seij deep below deck

to examine the vanguard's enormous bulkheads.

Watch your step.

It's really slippery and lots of tripping hazards.

It's a location that's hard to reach.

And few ever get to see.

So you were working on the design, yes?

- Yeah, yeah. - It's quite high.

- 10.3. - 10.3 meters, right.

I still remember the dimensions.

Although this cavernous space

is rarely accessed,

it's essential to guarantee the safety of the vanguard

in case of a collision.

On the other side of this, we have the ocean.

One of the risks during a transport is a collision

with another vessel.

If the skin would be damaged,

this whole tank would be filled with water.

But just like on the Chinese junk,

bulkheads help the vanguard stay safe at sea.

In this vessel, we have 96 ballast tanks,

each of them surrounded by these bulkheads

running from starboard to port side

and from fore to aft.

Here you can see one of the bulkheads.

These will prevent the water from flooding

in the rest of the vessel once a tank would be damaged.

This single tank

could hold about 6,000 tons of water in itself.

These steel plates and the enormous brackets

will hold to pressure acting on the other side of this plate.

Knowing that this tank is only one of the 96 ballast tanks,

it shows the sheer size of this vessel.

The vanguard is equipped with 10 bulkheads...

Three that run the length of the ship

and seven across the width.

If a collision were to occur,

these 20 millimeter thick steel walls

are capable of withstanding

over five tons of water per square foot.

They also provide structural support,

helping the vanguard bare the immense weights

loaded on her deck.

These bulkheads are the backbone of this vessel.

These are essential

for the structural integrity of the vessel

and the safety of the vessel in case of a collision.

Without these, the vessel couldn't carry

these huge cargoes.

At 902 feet long and 230 feet wide,

the vanguard is truly a vessel of epic proportions.

Thanks to her immense ballasting system,

arrangement of enormous bulkheads,

innovative buoyancy casings...

...and pair of retractable rudder propellers,

she's able to lift and transport loads

that would otherwise be impossible.

For all those involved with the vanguard,

being part of this record-breaking project

is a great source of pride.

In my opinion, this is a really incredible vessel.

There's no other vessel like this in the world.

For me, I'm very happy to be here

and to be part of this.

By drawing inspiration from the pioneers of the past,

supersizing their ideas,

modernizing their technology,

and overcoming huge challenges...

The last cargoes we are moving

are of such a size that this vessel,

it's the only one in the world that can do it.

Engineers have built a truly awe-inspiring ship

capable of feats no other vessel can achieve.

When you look out over it,

it just boggles the mind

to think about the amount of engineering

that has gone into this and the sheer size of structures

that can be brought onboard and what we can do with them.

It's just amazing.

They've succeeded

in making the impossible possible.

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