Danube River Salvage Project-6500 CBM LPG Vessel Re-launch
On Sep. 2 Eversafe Marine Engineering company, subsidiary of Evergreen Maritime Group, successfully re-launched a 6500 m3 LPG Vessel with marine airbags (ship launching balloons) in a Romanian shipyard.
That vessel measures by 116 m long and 18 m wide with 3650 tons light weight plus 450 tons ballast water. 
Something wrong happened to the side launching. That vessel stranded in Danube river, partly on slipways and broken slipping sledges. The vessel transversely inclined 9 degree on a 7 degree slope. The space from ground to vessel bottom are 0.3-0.8 m high.
In high tide time the water can reach 2.7 m and 0.7 m high respectively at vessel stern and bow. Not only water caused the difficulties of re-launching operation but also the complicated underwater situation: broken sledges, slipways, mud and landform.
To re-launch the vessel people need to remove all broken sledges first. Marine airbags are the ideal tool to lift vessel to do the cleaning job since they have huge contact area with vessel and can be installed easily. According to calculation total 26 pieces Evergreen marine airbags will lift vessel and adjust vessel to be parallel to slope also. 
When vessel is lifted by airbags people can replace broken sledges and slipways for the launching or launch it with rolling airbags. There are some disputes for the re-launching methods because it is in a dilemma: to launch vessel with sledges and slipways will need lots of underwater repair work and much time, to launch with airbags the slipways are obstacles for airbag rolling.
To meet urgent project need Evergreen Maritime delivered 26 pieces marine airbags which were transported to Romania by air in seven days. Three engineers arrived at shipyard at August 21 which is the same day of airbag arrival. Comparing with other re-launching plans shipyard thinks using airbags to roll vessel out is the best choice because it saves most time and money. Pulling force will surely be needed to make vessel move in lengthways direction. To enable airbags can roll over slipways and ensure no slipway breakage Eversafe engineers made an ingenious design which employing sand sacks to stuff ground and slipways.
Winches were first installed to pull vessel from two directions to prevent vessel from slipping. It took seven days to lift vessel and remove all broken sledges from vessel bottom. Some practical difficulties slow down the process: incline vessel bottom made it difficult to install airbags in right position; limited space and mud baffled people to do cleaning.
When finishing the cleaning job people began to stuff ground under vessel and future launching area with sand sacks and steel plates. It is another hard working because of the water and mud. The pulling system combined a tug with bulldozer can offer maximum 150 tons pull force. Pulling winches prevent vessel from slipping were removed when the preparation work was ready. And people can found at that time the vessel was steady on airbags which accorded with calculations. 
At 7 P.M. of Sep. 2 the re-launching work started. With increasing pulling force the vessel began to move in lengthways direction very slowly. Marine airbags rolled forward arduously at the beginning. About three or four minutes later vessel’s stern began to slip from airbags at the same time vessel moved forward post. Soon vessel’s stern got enough water and floated but bow still ride on airbags to move forward. At last vessel floated totally.
It is a hard project. Every forward step need careful design and hard working. From shipyard people to Eversafe engineers all people did a good work. Also it is a special project for marine airbags to re-launch a vessel from a 7 degree slope which full of sand sacks and woods. The advantages of Evergreen marine airbags are exhibited obviously in this project: heavy duty, flexibility, easy installation, etc.
The famous “Blue Danube” song sings,
Young blood
fresh courage,
O how happy,
it unites laughter!
Love and passionfills the breast -
-it's the greatest in the world.
That is exactly what we want to say for this Danube salvage project.