Sri Lanka is to receive a floating dock made at India’s Goa Shipyard Ltd. by next year.
The Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) has been seeking to acquire a floating dock since 2018, and was searching for the best-fit package through friendly countries. The Navy received promising offers from China, India, and Pakistan, and was evaluating the financial cost to select the best-fit floating dock.
The need for a floating dock was primarily to undertake repairs of vessels in the SLN fleet (all major vessels such as Offshore Patrol Vessels [OPV]), which were usually docked at Colombo Dockyard and paid in US Dollars in each dry-docking schedule.
These repair costs were getting higher and higher; thus, the Navy indicated to the Government the need for an alternative docking facility. Subsequent governments continued to delay considering this need, and the Navy, in every financial year projection, highlighted the need under capital acquisitions for several more years, as the cost of the floating dock on offer from China and India was high. Out of these two offers, the Indian offer was expensive compared to the Chinese offer and took more years to complete, whereas the Chinese offer was within a reasonable time frame.
As the financing of the purchase of the floating dock offer was going in circles, it was obvious at one point that the Chinese offer was the best fit with the offered finances and time. However, at this point, the Indian Government proposed to grant a $ 19.8 million to build a floating dock at the Indian Defence Ministry’s shipyard in Goa without a financial burden to the Sri Lankan Government.
However, the specification of the floating dock illustrated that the Navy’s biggest OPV-class vessels, such as the US- and China-gifted vessels of 110 m Length Overall (LOA), were not capable of being docked due to the shortened length of the Indian offer.
On 6 December 2023, the keel was laid and construction commenced at the Goa shipyard, which is one of four dockyards owned by the Indian Defence Ministry. The completed floating dock is scheduled to be delivered to Trincomalee by 2027 to start its operations. As per the current thinking of the Navy, the floating dock is planned to be berthed at Nicholson Cove within the naval base premises.
A floating dock in Trincomalee is nothing new, as post-World War II, there was such a floating dock in Trincomalee. The Admiralty Floating Dock (AFD) No. 23 was sunk on 8 August 1944 due to ballast error calculations when the HMS Valiant was taken into the floating dock. The details of this yesteryear facility are available in internet sources and should make interesting reading for those interested in understanding the maritime history of our island.
The AFD was stationed near the Great Sober Island of the Inner Harbour, and after sinking and breaking in two, several pieces were salvaged, but half of the structure remains on the seabed at a depth of 23 metres (70 feet), making it a famous wreck-dive site and a thriving marine colony for fish stocks.
Naval needs and national interests
Some decades thereafter, the Navy will once again start operating a floating dock and, having garnered the expertise of shipwrights through Trincomalee, Galle, and Kankesanthurai slipways, the Navy is confident of operating the floating dock. The Navy has the necessary wherewithal to manage the floating dry dock operations technically, thus the placement of the structure (within the Trincomalee Bay) is crucial to ensure that it stays safe from cyclones and extreme weather spells, as well as in making the facility serve the larger strategic needs of an island state.
This article was written with the aim of making the authorities aware of why the Navy should be looking at emplacing this technical facility to serve strategic aims in fulfilling naval needs and also in serving national interests to develop this island nation’s technical capacities.
Having lost the single dry dock facility at the Colombo Port to a foreign entity – India’s Mazagon Dock – it is time that the Government and the Navy look at strategically using this floating dock facility to serve the nation and build its capacities in technical know-how.
The writer, having been exposed to the preliminary arrangements of the floating dock in his capacities as the Director General Operations (2019–’21), Commander of the Eastern Naval Area (2021), and Chief of Staff (2022), is well aware of various studies undertaken by the Navy to berth this floating dock facility in those years.
The berthing has a direct impact on the operations of a technical facility of this nature, and these are connected to usage beyond the Navy too. Authorities in Colombo must understand that this incoming facility encompasses a wider technical benefit the Navy can offer to the industry and the island nation through correctly positioning the floating dock facility in Trincomalee.
Trincomalee remains the obvious choice due to available space and applicability of existing naval assets, such as heavy machinery workshops and expertise. Thus, the location to berth matters most.
Resulting benefits
The writer, during his tenure as Commander of the Eastern Naval Area stationed in Trincomalee, engaged the wider Government system, including the then Governor, the Technical College, the Ports Authority, and even the small-scale industries in Trincomalee to design a wider user base, thereby ensuring economic benefits to industry, society, and to technical institutions in the area.
At that time in 2021, the Ports Authority was to abandon its Mud Cove Pier facility, and the Mud Cove was the natural choice to berth the floating dock. This had environmental concerns too, apart from infrastructure considerations, as cyclone winds always blow from the northern direction due to the anti-clockwise rotation of these winds in the Northern Hemisphere (November is the cyclonic month of this island nation and in Trincomalee). In such a worst-case scenario, the Mud Cove provides the ideal shelter for massive structures such as a floating dock.
Road connectivity matters as well, as logistics in floating dock operations depend on timely deliveries and continuing supply. In today’s logistics, it is more on ‘just-in-time deliveries’ than the old fashioned ‘store yard’ concepts. The Mud Cove Pierhead is connected by a wide road network already available through Mud Cove Road to the A6 main road leading to the railway station and the township.
The Mud Cove Pierhead needs reclamation of marshy land area, and this requirement can be fulfilled by dredging the approach channel in the Mud Cove, thereby satisfying the necessity for reclamation and the use of dredging soil. This expanded land area would allow the establishment of small workshops and fabrication facilities by the small-scale industry, complementing the Navy’s floating dock requirements, such as sheet bending, welding work, minor repair work, etc.
All-inclusive industrial capacity of this type is already available in the country and what is required is an integrated approach to the establishment of a floating dock to make use of this small-scale industry. Such a broader strategic framework is sure to enhance the local industry and the economic benefits reaped will be much wider and more interrelated.
Then come the technical colleges and institutions in the Trincomalee area, which will provide the apprentice workforce, thereby enabling much-needed practical work for the younger generation under the supervision of experienced foremen and supervisors to develop this island nation’s skilled technician base.
Today, many of the products of these technical colleges lack the opportunity to hone their practical skills, and this forthcoming floating dock facility can be their career boost when designed with a broad strategic aim in mind.
What is needed is to have some collaborative framework with the Ports Authority (in fact, the Navy had several rounds of discussions with the authority’s planning team in Colombo in 2022) to acquire the Mud Cove land plot, develop the widened road connection through the Governor, and discuss the utilisation of trainees and technical institutions, with relevant ministerial support to make the best out of the floating dock facility.
A timely addition
The floating dock became another significant matter post-Colombo Dockyard takeover, as this island State now does not have its own docking facilities to cater to existing demand. Thus, the floating dock the Navy is receiving is not merely a naval property but a national property that will cater to national needs. Therefore, a strategic vision is much needed in establishing this floating dock to cater to a variety of demands. The Navy will be the manager of the facility, but strategic positioning is required to cater to the variety of national needs associated with such a technical facility.
This floating dry dock is a timely addition to the island nation’s dry-docking industry, hence its utilisation must be considered from a wider strategic scope than mere dedicated naval usage. Through this facility, the nation’s technical capacities and know-how, as well as its reputation of ship husbandry and seafaring, will thrive.
Thus, the whole-of-government approach must be extended to the Navy to establish the floating dock at the most strategic location in the Trincomalee Harbour, where the interests of the core and periphery will be fulfilled. It must be noted that the floating dry dock facility will serve as the nation’s alternative dry dock for servicing naval or commercial vessels with a lifting capacity of under 4,000 tonnes.
In conclusion, the writer wishes to point out that when the State does not invest for its own national interests, others will make that investment to advance their strategic interests rather than ours. Thus, having ignored the Sri Lanka Navy’s request to allocate finances for the floating dry dock, all governments since 2015 continued to demonstrate a lackadaisical attitude towards investing in a dry dock facility.
In contrast, the Indian Government seized the opportunity by extending a grant to the builder, Goa Shipyard, to construct the vessel for the seller (Government of India) to provide the receiver (Government of Sri Lanka). Therefore, making the optimum utilisation of the forthcoming facility is imperative in serving the island State’s strategic interests to reap the benefits of the ship services industry within the immediate neighbourhood of the world’s fourth largest economy.
(The writer is the former Chief Hydrographer/Chief of Staff of the Sri Lanka Navy, who post-retirement writes on the maritime environment and analyses regional developments in maritime and geostrategic scope. He remains an International Consultant for undersea cables and maritime intelligence)
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the official position of this publication)