Great photo. Three and a half days is the record time for the assembly of a U.S. built liberty ship more than 70 years ago!!!!. Block being contructed some where else, be it at another shipyard to where the vessel in being built or another Country has been practice for a long time now. Look at the new aircraft carrier for the Royal Navy in the UK, or nearly all of the vessel built in Norway, the hulls are constructed some where else (Poland, Romania.). I have had expierence of some well known players in the offshore that not only the steel but everything down to simple nuts and bolts must not be sourced from certain countries in regard to quaity. 10$ saved here might cost them 100000$ later when the are in operation!.
Its the world we live in I guess.
Kind regards, Frank

My apologies lappino, in my earlier comment I attributed the photo to Volker, sorry mate.
Wonderful shot and equally great explanation
Regards
Emmanuel.L.(Malta)

Thank you all for your comments.

What is seen here is based on a principle that was known back in WW2, when yards could build an entire Liberty ship in less than a week.

Obviously, there is a several orders of magnitude difference in size, but the logic is the same: assemble ships from pre-fabricated parts in order to minimize the final assembly time.

Building large hull blocks in China has been a pretty regular case for Korean yards for some time now (but there are owners who explicitely forbid this practice, too!). They are shipped to Korea by large heavy lift vessels, like this one:

www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=3003957

...and then floated into the dry or floating dock. Practice is not limited to container vessels, as there are VLCC tankers built in the same way, too.

There are some temporary modifications to the structure to make it watertight for the purpose: central pipe duct of large container vessels is closed by steel plates, but there are no other major things to be done. Yes, and there are temporary draft marks painted on the "mega-blocks".

Cheers

Vlad

Super and interesting shot Vlad,

cheers
Andrew

Thank you @Vlad !

No wonder European yards cannot compete bearing in mind also lower labour costs, less strikes, more automation in these far east countries.
thanks for sharing Volker
regards
Emmanuel.L.(Malta)

Being ignorant on the shipbuilding industry, I have to wonder how much of this Korean manufactured ship was made in China. Or is a hull section such as this considered "raw materials"?

Indeed a very nice shot, well taken with nice weather.
Cheers,
Roy

Fantastic photo, One picture explains so much. Thanks

Thank you Volker my friend!

Greetings from South Korea

Vlad

Very interesting shot my friend Vlad! Cheers,Volker