Getting excited for Anthem of the Seas, Royal Caribbean’s newest smartship, set to debut this April? The 167,800-ton vessel just completed an important milestone in her construction journey: her “docking out.” Sometimes referred to as a “float out,” this momentous occasion is when a ship is moved from dry dock to wet dock and floated out onto open water for the very first time.
And while it might sound simple enough, it actually takes quite a bit of coordination from hundreds of team members at the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany (where Anthem and her sister ship Quantum of the Seas were built). Some cool facts:
- Anthem’s dry dock area, which is inside a huge facility known as the “building hall,” took four hours to fill – probably because the space uses the same amount of water as 87 Olympic-sized swimming pools!
- Anthem’s dry dock area measures roughly 482 meters, the same length as the Empire State Building lying down.
- There’s less than four meters (about 13 feet) difference between the width of the ship and the width of the building hall’s door, leaving little room for error.
- A 6,577-horsepower tugboat was used to carefully guide Anthem
The entire process takes about seven hours from start to finish.
Check out this timelapse video (or play below) to see how it all comes together.
