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Longitudinal Ship Launching

Article in Journal of Maritime & Transportation Science · June 2020

DOI: 10.18048/2020.00.18.

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 ISSN 0554-6397
Stručni članak
(Professional paper)

Daniel Žgomba
E-mail: dzgomba@riteh.hr
Anton Turk
E-mail: anton.turk@riteh.hr
Marko Hadjina
E-mail: hadjina@riteh.hr
University of Rijeka, Faculty of Engineering, Vukovarska 58, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia
Dijana Pražić
E-mail: dijana.prazic@uljanik.hr
Ivan Margić
E-mail: imargic@aitac.nl
Shipyard "3. maj" d.d., Liburnijska 3, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia

Longitudinal Ship Launching

Abstract
In this paper the ship placement on the slipway and technology of longitudinal launching is analyzed
along with conducted static calculation. The first part of the paper describes the longitudinal slipway
with all of its equipment made for reception and placement of the particular type of ship. The second
part of the paper is describing longitudinal launching of the ship with all of the critical moments during
the launching. Every one of the critical positions of the ship is defined and the prevention discussed.
Forces and moments of forces for every stage of the launching are calculated with the selected computer
software and the static diagram is made and discussed for the particular ship.

Keywords: ship longitudinal lounching, slipway technology, static calculations, static diagram

1. Introduction

This paper examines the sequence of technological activities related to the

placement and launching of a ship from a longitudinal approach. Launching is one of the
most important moments in the making of a ship. Whether this process is uncertain and
risky depends on the method of launch. The most common method of launching is to
lower the boat from the slipway. Depending on whether the launch is in the longitudinal
or transverse direction, there are two different ways of launching: end launching and
side launching. Side launching is common in river shipyards because of the limited sail
and the construction of the riverboats themselves. Given that the length of the available
shoreline is small for naval shipyards, and sufficient free sail is available, longitudinal

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launching is applied. As the forces that load the ship’s structure occur during launch,
it is necessary, in advance, to determine all possible critical positions that threaten the
safety of the ship during launching. For this reason, it is necessary to create a launch
calculation. The equipment needed to place the ship in the dock, and for the launch, is
described in more detail with the attached pictures from the shipyard “3. May”. Static
launch calculation was performed in “SIKOB“ software.
The aim of this paper is to illustrate the complexity of the boat placement itself
and the longitudinal launch, and to present a number of factors related to the launch
itself, which should be considered before assemblying the boat on the slipway. Listed
data was received directly from shipyard 3. Maj.

2. Longitudinal slipway for launching of the ship into the water

The longitudinal slipway is a concreted surface that’s used to build, launch and/or
overhaul the ship. The inclination of the slipway has to produce a large enough force
to overcome friction between the sledges and the surface of the slipway. The most
common incline is from 3,5% to 9%, and the ship is usually launched on one or two
lanes. Curved design of the slipway has to outline the arc of a circle with the diameter
of 1500 – 10 000 m. The purpose of the curved design is to reduce the submersed part
of a slipway and the stresses on the structure of the ship. Every slipway consists of the
track, the foundation of the slipway, space for scaffolding and the crane track. Types
of cranes are bridge cranes with a capacity of 500 - 1500 tons, portal cranes with a
capacity of up to 100 tons, mobile cranes, construction cranes. It is necessary to ensure
the placement of the cranes in such a way that the reach of the cranes oversrpreads the
surface of the whole driveway.
Slipway blocks are a part of the equipment that the hull stands on during
construction. The number of blocks must be sufficient to support the weight of the ship,
with its equipment, before its delivery to the water. Prior to the start of the construction,
a ship supporting plan is drawn up detailing the positions in which the blocks are placed,
paying attention to stress concentrations within the hull itself, to prevent deformation
of the bottom plating. Therefore, a slipway block must be placed at the intersections
of the primary elements of the ship’s structure. The stern and the engine compartment
area will have a denser arrangement of bilge blocks under the plating because of the
weight in that hull section. The height of the block must be sufficient to allow the sleigh
and cradle to be pulled in between the hull and the launching way before launching.
Depending on the weight of the ship, the concentration of weights along the length of
the hull, and the placement of the elements inside the hull, a supporting plan is drawn
up separately for each ship. All this information shows how many slipway blocks are
needed, in which for parts of the hull a denser placement of blocks is needed, and in
what places a block is allowed to be positioned, so that the hull does not deform. There
are several types of slipway blocks:

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Steel block – the most common type of slipway block when making large ships
and also used in combination with wood.
Block with sand – before launching, the ship must be lowered on the sleigh from
slipway blocks. This is accomplished by releasing moisture-protected dry quartz sand
through the openings of the block which are demountable.
As the shape of the ship changes along the ship’s lines, the packages must adapt
to the shape of the ship. Therefore, the foundations are made with strips that follow
the curvature of the hull form and, depending on the position, are placed on the steel
blocks, or towers. On Figure 1 the today’s slipway blocks are shown. It shows two
basic types of blocks depending on the position below the ship.

Figure 1: Different types of slipway blocks, [1]

Basically, inclined pillars are brackets that prevent the boat from falling from
slipway blocks. When building a ship, unexpected situations can occur that could
endanger the ship on a slipway, such as the impact of a section on the hull of a ship.
In this case, additional forces may occur which could impair the stability of the ship
on the supporting blocks. Inclined pillars are also mounted on the supporting parts of
the structure to prevent deformation of the hull. When installing the pillar, the angle
between the hull and the pillar has to be as small as possible, so the pillar is as long as
possible, thus ensuring that there is no bending of the pillar.
Launching way is the fixed part of the slipway that the ship moves on during
launching. It usually consists of one or two lanes, of which the distance is 1/3 or 1/4
of the width of the ship. For ships of greater width, three to four lanes can be used. The
launching way is composed of two parts: an underwater part and a part above water.
During the launch, the ship slides on a launching way while standing on sliding ways.
Between the sliding ways and the launching way, the friction should be minimized
so that before setting the sliding ways, the launching way shall first be lubricated
with a base lubricant and then a sliding lubricant, as seen in figure 2, according to the
lubrication plan. Base lubricant can be reused, while sliding lubricant is disposable.
Both lubricants are heated in separate boilers before application. Their thickness is

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predetermined at 3-4 mm, but this is difficult to check in practice, so it is important

that everything is evenly distributed.

Figure 2: Launching way, [1]

The sliding ways are located between the hull of the ship and the slipway, as seen
in figure 3. When launching, the boat slides across the launching way. The sliding ways
are made of 300 x 300 oak beams, usually 6-8 meters long and width dependent on
the expected specific pressure. The ends of the sliding ways are usually studded with
steel with welded lifting eyes for easy handling, and longitudinally interconnected by
cables. In order to prevent the sliding ways from being tilted transversely and separated
from the hull, they must be attached to the hull by turnbuckles.

Figure 3: Sliding ways with the packaging (on the curved part of the hull), [1]

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3. Placement of the selected ship on the slipway

As an example of a ship´s placement on a slipway, a “car carrier” (construction

705) built in the shipyard 3. Maj in Rijeka is presented. The input parameters needed
to place the ship in the dock are, [2]:

Construction 705 was put together on the slipway No. 2 (cross section of the
slipway is shown on figure 4) because the slipway No. 1 was closer to the wall causing
the return wave. That wave can have a detrimental impact on the stability of the ship
during the launching. This ship has somewhat higher center of gravity and there is a
small likelihood of it ejecting the ship from the slipway. The ship can be placed in four
ways depending on the shape. Slipway tracks are the ones that allow these placement
methods. Which combination of two tracks (out of four) will br used depends on the
shape of the vessel. For construction 705, which had a slim hull form with a small flat
bottom width relative to the width of the ship, the two closest tracks were taken (second
and third, counting from left to right). By comparing the characteristics of the ship and
the slipway, first to define the position of the ship by its lenght, breadth and height is
needed using the benchmarks on the slipway and the ship´s frames. The selected ship is
positioned with the frame number 91 on the benchmark number 15, while its centerline
is placed 1200 mm from the benchmarks axis. The height of the ship is defined to be
2300 mm on the benchmark number 1, and 1600 mm on the benchmark number 20.
What it actually means is that the stern is positioned higher than the peak of the ship
because the slipway has an incline.

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Figure 4: Cross section of the slipway, [2]

Figure 5 shows a plan of the slipway where the ship was placed in the selected
shipyard, [2]. Before mounting the ship on the slipway, the ship is divided into groups
and the order of installation of the ship is defined. Installation of the selected ship
on the slipway begins with the double bottom section 3511 and continues with other
double bottom sections.

Figure 5: Placement of the ship on the slipway, [2]

4. Launching of the selected ship

After the hull is secured of being watertight, it can be launched into the water.
For the launch to execute without danger to the ship and the environment, the forces
and moments that occur when the ship moves down the slipway need to be calculated.
With understanding of these forces and moments, one can predict whether the ship’s
structure (and the equipment by which the ship descends into the water) will be
damaged. As mentioned before, the equipment by which the ship is lowered into the
water are called sliding way and a launching way where these are placed, which can
be of different design, depending on the shipyard. When launching a ship, a uniform

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motion is assumed at launch, i.e. inertia forces due to uneven ship motion are ignored.
Once a ship has moved from its equilibrium position, there is no way to stop it. For
this reason, a static launch calculation is created that gives an insight into the launch
before the launch itself. The static launch calculation calculates the forces and moments
occurring in the critical positions of the ship and compares the stresses with those
that the hull and devices can withstand. In a naval shipyard, longitudinal launching is
common because of the large area for free drift. For longitudinal launching, the ship
is pushed aft first into the sea for a number of reasons. The most important reason is
that there are very sensitive devices installed on the stern of the ship, such as steering
gear and shaft lines, which must be properly centered. Any major deformation could
prevent the operation of these devices and thus prolong the course and cost of building
the ship. As explained later, the maximum reaction upon launching occurs on the part
that enters the water last. The launch calculation was made for previously mentioned
ship using the software called “SIKOB”, which was emloyed during the construction
of selected ship in Shipyard 3. May. Today, this program is no longer used, instead a
program called “NAPA” is very much in use, which is very similar to the previous one.
The input to the calculation is as follows:
For the ship:
• Light Weight: W = 12093 t
• Center of gravity position from the main frame: LCG = -7.490 m (towards
the stern)
• Height of the center of gravity: KG = 15.27 m
• Distance from the stern perpendicular to the end of the slipway: A = 93.8 m

For the sliding ways:

• Distance from the stern perpendicular to the nearest sliding way: B = 15.8 m
• Height from top edge of the launching way to base on 1st sliding way: CRDH1
= 1.78 m
• Height from the top edge of the launching way to the base on the last sliding
way: CRDH2 =1.28 m
• Length of the sliding ways: CRDL = 138 m
• Breadth of the sliding ways: CRDB = 4 m
• Length of the cradle: POPPL = 9.6 m

For the launching way:

• Lenght: WAYL = 259.8 m
• Height between the start and end points of the slipway: WAYH = 13.561 m
• Height of the radius segment of the slipway: WAYC = 0.872 m
• Water height from the deepest point of the launching way: WATERLEVELS
= 4.723 m [2]

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4.1. First phase of the launch

During the first launch phase, the ship moves uniformly along the dry part of the
driveway. The buoyancy force begins to emerge only after the stern perpendicular has
touched the surface of the water. Path travelled by the boat can be calculated using the
following formula:
Tp = x · m - p ∙ n - (l ∙ m + h - g) (1)
Tk = x · m + (L- p) ∙ n - (l ∙ m + h - g) (2)
Whereby it is:
p – distance from end of the slipway to aft perependicular
L – boat length
l – length of the slipway
h – height of the sliding ways
g – water height above the submersed part of the slipway

By now the ship has traveled 54 meters. The position of the center of gravity of
the system and the weight of the system (boat + sleigh with packaging) are constant.
The force exerted by the ship on the slipway is constant until buoyancy occurs, then
the total force of the ship on the sleeve decreases. For the selected ship, that force
is described by the total mass of the ship and sliding ways in tonnes and amounts to
12093 tonnes, [1].

4.2. Second phase of the launch

The moment when the center of gravity crosses the end of the slipway is called
tipping. At this point it is possible that the moment of buoyancy did not outweigh the
mass moment of the whole system and the ship is starting to upright itself. This results
in the lifting of the bow from the slipway and thus a high concentration of stresses on
the ship’s hull. In order to avoid this, it is necessary to provide sufficient launching way
length so that, before that occurs, the ship already has sufficient moment of buoyancy.
Moment of buoyancy in regards to the first point of the sliding ways:
M = U · b (3)
U – Buoyancy of the boat, t
b – distance from center of buoyancy to the first point of the sliding ways, m

Reaction on the crane is calculated by subtracting the buoyancy from the weight
of the ship.
Moment of buoyancy in regards to the end of the slipway:
M = U · d (4)
d – distance from center of buoyancy to the end of the slipway, m

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Moment of weight in regards to the end of the slipway:

MT = G · e (5)
e – distance from center of gravity to the end of the slipway, m

In order to avoid tipping, we have to examine whether the curve of moment of

buoyancy on the end of the slipway is located above the curve of the moment of weights
on the end of the slipway. This can also be ensured by boarding the ballast into the bow
peak to move the mass center of gravity towards the bow and consequently to cross the
end of the slipway later. No tipping occurred during launching of the selected ship, [2].

4.3. Third phase of the launch

The third phase begins with the ship’s rotation around the cradle. When rotation
starts it means that the moment of buoyancy has overcome the moment of mass and
the ship begins to rotate. The position of foces during the third phase of the launch is
shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Third phase of launching [3]

Waterline during the rotation is calculated by formulas (3.1) and (3.2).

CRANE REACTION (Turning) - The start of turning of the selected ship starts
after traveling 184.5 m. The intensity of reaction force is calculated by the difference
of buoyancy force and weight force of the ship after traveling 184.5 m. The mentioned
software, used for the launch calculation, calculates the reaction force around the cradle
when turning occurs, and it is Q = 18590 kN. The force on the cradle can be reduced
in two ways: by shifting the center of gravity towards the stern by ballasting the stern
tanks, or reducing the trim when placing the ship in the dock [3].

4.4. Fourth phase of the launch

Fourth phase starts when the ship is not in the contact with the slipway. During
this phase the ship should be on it’s project draft. In the static calculation, the software
has calculated the value of stern, and bow, draft to be,
Tp = 3,29 m
Tk = 6.64 m
This launch did not require the means to stop the ship because the ship was allowed
to drift freely. [2]

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4.5. Stability control

The static launch calculation also includes stability control. It is made for the
position of the ship at the beginning of the rotate around the bow, because at that
moment the ship rests only on the bow cradle and the reaction force on the cradle is the
greatest. The moment of static stability has the same shape as for a ship floating freely
on the water. In this part of the calculation, the transverse metacentre Mo is replaced by
the reduced metacentre M0’. It is determined by connecting M0 with the point around
which the ship turns. Where this connection crosses the vertical line from of the center
of gravity, the reduced metacenter M0’ is located [3].
If Mo’ is above the center of gravity of the system during turning, the ship is in
stable equilibrium. If this is not the case, then the center of gravity of the system is
shifted by the ballast or possibly the front of the sliding ways is moved forward [3].
In the launch calculation, the distance of the reduced metacenter from the center
of gravity of the system was calculated to be 0.610 m, which means that the ship is
stable [2].

4.6. Slipway stress calculation for the launch of the selected ship

The length of the sliding ways in contact with the slipway during the first phase
is 138 m. The reaction force is equal to the weight of the ship because during the first
phase the ship did not acquire buoyancy force and the reaction force is at 66.7 m from
the cradle. As the ship moves along the slipway, the resulting load moves toward the
cradle. At the moment of turning, the stress on the slipway is highest corresponding
to 484 N/mm2. The total reaction force is 18589.95 kN, after which the load reduces,
and the resultant load remains centered at the same distance from the main frame, [2].
After all the calculations previously mentioned have been done, static launch diagram
is made (shown in figure 6).

Figure 7: Static launch diagram [1]

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5. Conclusion

The purpose of this research is to present a more in-depth insight into the
longitudinal launching of a ship, using the knowledge gained from the shipyard 3.
Maj. The launching of the ship is the final, and also the most critical, action in the
construction of the ship. In order to perform the launch safely, a series of actions
must be performed beforehand. One of the basic is the launch calculation. From the
launch calculation, it is possible to predict, in advance, difficulties and dangers during
launching. In this paper the calculation of launching of the ship number 705 from the
shipyard „3. Maj” was conducted. The characteristics of the slipway and the dimensions
of the ship were the input parameters that are needed to describe the position of the ship.
With the software called „SIKOB” the values of drafts at stern and bow, the buoyancy
and the position of center of gravity were calculated depending on the distance traveled.
Also, the software has calculated the pressure distribution on the slipway during
standstill and during launch. Those numbers determine the type of lubricating oil and
the thickness of layers. It’s imprtant that the coefficients of friction correspond the
ones taken in the calculation so that the results are credible. After the final calculation
and the static launch chart have been made, the preparatory actions on the ship and
the slipway have to be carried out. After that, further preparation of the launch and the
launch itself is carried out. The results and procedure of this research may be further
used to investigate the launch of the same or similar vessels. This information can be
compared to previous research, thus enhancing the technology and launch calculation
process itself, unbound to the specific type of ship.

References
1. Shipyard „3.Maj” various materials and documentation, 2018.
2. Daniel Žgomba, Final paper: Ship longitudinal launching methodology, University of Rijeka
Faculty of Engineering, 2018.
3. Josip Uršić, Ship Stability II, University of Zagreb Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and naval
Architecture, Zagreb, 1991.

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