A heavy-lift ship is a vessel designed to move very large loads that cannot be handled by normal ships.
Ships are supposed to float above the water. Right? Well not this one. It spends all of its time just below the water on purpose. Doing a job that we never expected. Because who knew you’d need something like this… until you do.
Amazing.
This is the Blue Marlin, a semi-submerging vessels capable of lifting another ship out of the water and transporting it.
Like the USS Cole.
Or, say, a dozen other transport ships.
Or this Oil Rig
Or this one.
This is the SBX-1. The Sea-Based X-Band Radar, which is a floating, self-propelled, mobile active electronically scanned array radar station designed to operate in high winds and heavy seas. It is part of the U.S. Defense Department Ballistic Missile Defense System.
And it’s huge!
These are drilling rigs with a gridwork of iron below them creating a giant footprint to stabilize the weight. They jack up out of the water with those large legs.
And here’s three of them.