KAREN EARNSHAW
The building of the Marshall Islands Shipping Corporation’s 150-foot sailing cargo vessel on Geoje Island, South Korea, has reached a milestone: On Friday, May 26, the Asia Shipbuilding company held a keel laying ceremony.
The event was attended by a range of VIPs, including Foreign Affairs Minister Kitlang Kabua and RMI Ambassador to S. Korea Albon Ishoda.
While much of the hull has already been constructed, officially there are four celebrated events in the life of a ship: Keel laying, launching, commissioning and decommissioning.
According to Wikipedia, the keel laying is the formal recognition of the start of a ship’s construction and is usually marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship.
During this key ceremony, Kabua said in her keynote remarks that the keel laying is “the start of the paradigm shift from conventional driven, solely engine propelled ships to a new generation of vessel for our islands.” She added that transitioning from using outdated technologies is important while “we face daily challenges with rising sea levels, the acidification of our oceans leading to coral bleaching and taking away our resources that we all need to survive.”
For this project, the Shipping Corporation is partnering with Germany’s Deutsche Gesellschaft fur international Susammernarbeit, a.k.a. GIZ.
GIZ Project Director Raffael Held said in a release that “the combination of various technologies for such size and type of vessel is unique.”
Following the keel laying ceremony, the shipyard will continue with the production of the vessel until it reaches its next milestone, the launching in early October 2023.