VESSEL REVIEW | East End – 93,500-tonne floating dock expands Grand Bahama Shipyard's cruise repair capability
East End, the first of two new floating dry docks ordered for Grand Bahama Shipyard (GBSL) in Freeport, the Bahamas, has completed its first cruise repair season after entering commercial service in January 2026.
The 357.39-metre dock, built by China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) subsidiary Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding, arrived at Freeport Harbour on November 22, 2025, and lifted its first vessel, the Carnival Corporation cruise ship Carnival Elation, on January 16, 2026.
The dock is rated to lift 93,500 tonnes. It forms part of a redevelopment programme that GBSL valued at US$600 million in its 2025 announcements, covering construction of two floating docks in China, their delivery to Freeport, commissioning, and shoreside works including an extension of the shipyard's pier.
The dock is 357.39 metres (1,172.5 feet) in length and 70 metres (230 feet) in beam, along with a clear width between dock walls of 59 metres (190 feet) and a wall height of 18 metres (59 feet).
Improvement in capacity over owner's existing floating dock
By comparison, the yard's largest dock before the redevelopment, Dry Dock No. 2, measured about 300 by 58.5 metres (980 by 192 feet) and was reported to handle vessels of up to 82,500 tonnes displacement. East End is therefore roughly 57 metres (190 feet) longer and adds around 11,000 tonnes of lift.
The dock operates through 44 ballast tanks controlled by an automatic dock control system that manages submergence and lift cycles, which CSSC said improves both efficiency and safety during docking evolutions. Beihai Shipbuilding technicians spent about two months at the Freeport yard after arrival, debugging and testing the dock's systems before it went into service.
Four electrically powered gantry cranes mounted on mobile units run along the dock walls, each with a capacity of 50 tonnes each. The dock-wall vehicle package was supplied under an engineering, procurement and construction contract by the equipment division of the CSSC Ninth Design and Research Institute (NDRI).
That contract was signed in 2024, and the vehicles cleared Lloyd's Register classification surveys and completed owner acceptance inspections in 2025 before being shipped to the Bahamas in September that year. NDRI said the vehicles use intelligent operating systems and are designed for stability in complex marine conditions.
Nippon Paint Marine supplied the corrosion protection for East End and its sister dock Lucayan. The company said its self-indicating epoxy was applied across a combined area of about 1.2 million square metres (13 million square feet) on the two docks. The coating changes appearance where film thickness falls short of specification, allowing applicators and inspectors to identify thin areas visually, including edges and corners where thickness gauges are difficult to use.
Carnival Elation was in East End from January 16, 2026, for scheduled maintenance involving technical and statutory work, and returned to service as planned on February 9.
Citing client confidentiality, GBSL did not disclose the work scope and has not published docking loads, ballast sequences or crane utilisation for the project.
The company said the docking marked the yard's transition to a two-dock operation.
Enhancing cruise repair outside of Europe and Asia
With East End in service alongside the yard's existing dock, GBSL's 2026 cruise repair season, which ran from November 2025 to the following May, produced repair and maintenance work on 28 vessels.
The dock addresses a gap that dates to April 1, 2019, when a construction crane collapsed onto Royal Caribbean's cruise ship Oasis of the Seas in Dry Dock No. 2 during a partial lift. The accident damaged both the ship and the dock, left the vessel with a starboard list, and caused eight non-life-threatening injuries.
The yard subsequently lost its multi-dock capability, and the largest cruise ships operating in the region were sent to Europe or Singapore for drydocking. GBSL said East End has restored and expanded its ability to accommodate several cruise vessels at once.
"The arrival of East End greatly enhances cruise docking and retrofit capability and expands our commercial docking capacity," GBSL Chief Executive Chris Earl said. "An even larger dock, Lucayan, is expected later in the year."
