Dry-docking of a ship and analysis of accidents occured during the dry-docking of ships

From about 4000 BC until today, first wooden ships and, after the industrial revolution, steel ships with rivets and, in the 20th century, with welded construction, have been built. Today, in addition to these ships, boats are also produced using aluminum and various composite materials. Regardless of what material is built, every ship must be maintained and repaired at certain intervals, depending on the operation and the sea conditions which the ship is exposed to. Docking of these ships is required due to routine planned maintenance processes or unplanned malfunctions and/or deformations at propeller, shaft, shaft bearing, hull plates and strength elements. Ships are docked on floating or dry dock platforms. Before the docking of ships, wooden fillings are placed on the metal blocks lined up on the deck of the dock in accordance with the bottom form of the ship. The entire oak wooden filling on this metal block, which takes the form of the bottom of the ship, is called as keel block. In the first part of the study, the docking stage of the ships was discussed in details, the docking plan of a ship was prepared, and the keel block's strength calculation was performed. Then, before and after docking, the procedures to be followed by authorities of the shipyard and the ship and the maneuvers during the docking operation were discussed. In the second part, typical and exceptional accidents in the form of explosion, fire, capsizing, breakage in the ship that causes loss of life and property during docking were analyzed, and the reasons for these accidents were discussed in detail. In the conclusion part of the study, the precautions to be taken to prevent the accidents experienced in the past were discussed, and the methods of control that should be applied in order to avoid docking accidents completely, were listed in detail.