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Setenave Shipyards, built on man-made island in the Sado River, can build and repair ships up to 700,000 dwt.
Setenave-A New Portuguese Shipyard
Floats Ships Off Building Platform Into Drydock
Setenave — Estaleiros Navais de Setubal
(Setenave Shipyards), was founded in May
1971 for the purpose of operating a new
construction shipyard at the mouth of the
Sado River, in the vicinity of the town of
Setubal, Portugal. The facility is 25 miles
south of Lisbon on a man-made island.
At a later stage, the decision was made
to build the yard as a combined newbuilding
and repair yard for large ships. This deci-
sion was based on the fact that the number
of large ships sailing and on order was in-
creasing so steadily that a shortage of dock-
ing and repairing facilities could be fore-
seen. Furthermore, Lisnave Shipyard, the
successful repair yard in Lisbon, could not
add any more docking capacity to their pres-
Flooding of the drydock is accomplished by pumps
having a total capacity of 400,000 gpm.
As the repair dock floods, the water flows over the This view shows the hull section after being floated
sill into the newbuilding section to float the ship. into the drydock and the dock being pumped.
ent three large drydocks and it was, there-
fore, decided to build the necessary addi-
tional drydock capacity at Setenave.
The two drydocks at Setenave, one of
700,000-dwt capacity and one of 320,000-dwt
capacity, will complement the available dry-
docks in the Lisbon area and will be operated
in conjunction with Lisnave.
The area where the yard is located is
ideally suited for a shipyard. Sheltered by
the peninsula of Troia from the open sea, it
provides safe anchorage and mooring places
for ships of any size. The total area of the
river owned by Setenave amounts to more
than 750 acres, of which about 250 acres is
reclaimed as an island on which the yard is
located.
As the area is not yet industrialized, the
availability of labor is no problem; and from
the very start of the yard, extensive training
programs have been put into operation with
the assistance of Lisnave Shipyard and of
Setenave's own school.
To ensure that the shipyard would have
sufficient availability of "know-how," agree-
ments were made with three foreign
shipyards — Eriksbergs Mek. Verkstads of
Goteborg, Kockums Mek. Verkstads of
Malmo, both in Sweden, and the Rijn Schelde
Verolme Group in the Netherlands—to assist
in the training programs.
The recognition that substantial economies
in both newbuilding and repair could be
achieved through the combined use of capital
6 Maritime Reporter/Engineering News
Digital Wave Publishing