Shipyard carries out first inland vessel overhaul
Strela Shiprepair has expanded its repair portfolio with a completed overhaul on its first inland vessel.
The company was founded in April 2022 and began operations at the start of 2023, since when it has repaired or serviced a wide range of vessels, including workboats, coasters, offshore vessels, passenger ships, and now an inland cargo transporter.
Based in Stralsund, on the northeastern coast of Germany, the yard took Kaja Josephine in for eight weeks to completely renew the floor area of 818m2 with thick steel plates weighing a total of 146 tonnes.
As a copper ore transporter, Kaja Josephine has had a lot of wear and tear since being built for the Schramm Group in 2007, and bulkheads and longitudinal walls of the hold also had to be reinforced.
She was also given six additional ballast water pumps so that the vessel could be trimmed more quickly during loading and unloading.
“One of the special features of this type of ship are the four pod drives (rudder propellers) that can be rotated through 360°,” says Strela. “They are mounted in pairs fore and aft and give the 97.5 metres long and 13.6 metres wide inland waterway vessel great manoeuvrability. The Kaja Josephine is used on the shipping route between Brunsbüttel and Hamburg. She transports copper ore for a metallurgy company based on the Elbe.”
Strela Shiprepair has seen 24 vessels docked in the first half of 2024, including workboats and offshore vessels. Last year it repaired 40 vessels, it says.
Despite its young age, the yard is now one of the largest on the German coast, with most work carried out in steel, mechanical engineering and propeller and shaft systems.
