From the big dock to the frigate Wicher. Exceptional days for Polish shipyards

The next days will bring two important events for the Polish shipbuilding industry. In Szczecin the last module of the floating dock built by Szczecińska Shipyard "Wulkan" for Gryfia will hit the water, and in the Gulf of Gdańsk for the first time will stand on the water of the future ORP Wind – the first frigate of the Swordfish Program. This will be a special week for the Shipyard Portal.

There are days in the editorial office that are especially long waiting for. Launching is one of those moments when months and often years of work of shipbuilders can finally be seen entirely – in the form of a construction that first hits water.

In the coming days, we'll have two. For the Shipyard Portal, which for years describes Polish shipyards, their ships, ships and people behind these projects, it is difficult to imagine a more specific week.

First Szczecin and last module of the large floating dock

In just a few hours, an operation will begin before launching the last new floating dock module built by Szczecin Shipyard "Volcano" for the Marine Shiprepair Yard "Grifia". Today, the design will be moved from the Odra Nowa assembly square to the launching boat, and the day later it will hit the water.

The module itself is about 80 metres long and weighs over 4,000 tons. After connecting all three parts of the dock will be 235.6 metres long and 47.3 metres wide.

It won't be an event of a dimension like launching a new Navy ship. However, this does not diminish its importance for the Polish shipbuilding industry, because it closes one of the key stages of the construction of the new floating dock for "Griffy".

It will be one of the basic tools of the repair yard. It is his parameters that will determine which ships can be accepted for repairs, upgrades and revisions, and thus what contracts the yard can apply for.

This investment involves not only the money that needs to be found first, but also the competences acquired over the years. You have to be able to design the design, prepare the production, weld thousands of elements, move multitone sections, safely cause them, and then merge them together.

In Szczecin we will see not only the last module coming down to the water. This will also be a visible effect of the work of shipbuilders and engineers on one of the largest constructions carried out in recent years by the Polish shipbuilding industry.

A day later, attention will move to Gdynia

On 9 August, a several-day operation will begin leading to launching the future ORP Wind. On Sunday evening the hull of the first frigate of the program Swordfish will be partially removed from the hull hall of the PGZ War Shipyard – about 40 metres – and illuminated. This will be the first opportunity to see a large part of a nearly 139-metre ship outside the hall, where for the past years its subsequent blocks have been joined.

On 12 August, a ceremony of baptism and naming the ORP will be held at the PGZ War Shipyard. Wind. A day later, frigates will be properly launched.

It won't be a classic descent of the ship from the slipway. The hull will be placed on a semi-sunboard Boabarge 33, then brought to the Gulf of Gdańsk. Controlled filling of ballast tanks will make the barge gradually immerse under the frigate hull until ORP Wind For the first time, it will stand on its own water.

At some point, weighing more than 4,000 tons of hull will float over the supports and start to stand on the water for the first time.

This will be the right time to launch the future ORP Wind.

Almost 139 metres of Polish frigate

Wind is 138.7 metres long and over 20 metres wide. Once the equipment is completed, its buoyancy will be around 7,000 tonnes.

It will be the first of the three frigates of the Swordfish program, alongside the future ORP Storm and ORP Hurricane. Ships are intended to provide the Navy with the capabilities to defend anti-aircraft, combat naval targets and submarines, protect communication routes and operate in NATO ship teams.

Therefore, on 13 August there will not be another large hull built in the Polish shipyard.

The first such large warship built for the Polish Navy will hit the water in many years. The ship, which will become one of the most important elements of the Polish naval forces after the completion of the equipment and integration of the weapon.

Equally important – it arises in my beloved Gdynia.

I've been waiting for this moment for years.

For me. launching Burza will have another, very personal meaning. About the need to build new frigates The Shipyard Portal wrote long before signing a contract for the implementation of the program Swordfish and many years before cutting the first sheet.

I remember that time very well. The dispute has not yet been about radar, missiles, or combat systems. Much earlier we had to answer the question whether Poland needed large frigates at all and whether our industry should undertake to build them.

The answer was not obvious at the time. The idea had strong supporters, but also many opponents.

And that's when the Shipyard Portal started writing about it.

There was no staff of people behind us or ready-to-lay messages sent to the biggest newsroom. It was me, one of my colleagues and two commanders. Based on knowledge, experience and determination, we convinced that Poland needs such ships.

This was not about propaganda, but about the arguments arising from the knowledge of the modern war at sea, the tasks of the modern Navy and the importance of ports, terminals, shipping routes and maritime critical infrastructure for State security.

There are texts from those years in the Archives of the Shipyard Portal. You can go back to them today and see what we wrote about when there was not yet a signed contract, the selected Arrowhead 140 project, or the certainty that the first Swordman would actually rise.

Then the decisions came. The contract was signed, the project was selected, the yard was modernised, the first sheet of sheet was cut, the keel was laid and further hull blocks were merged.

Wind It grew right in front of us.

August 13th will be on the water for the first time.

Therefore, I will look at this launching differently than at another event that needs to be described, photographed and published on the Shipyard Portal. I'm going to be looking at an almost 139-foot ship that we wrote about when it wasn't foregone.

That's what I've been waiting to see all these years.

Two launchings, two different meanings

Szczecin and Gdynia share several hundred kilometres, and both events concern completely different structures. In one case, it is a dock that is to be used for ship repairs for decades to come. In the second about the frigate, which is to enter service in the Navy of Poland, defend the Polish coast and ensure safety at sea.

However, they are much more combined.

Polish shipyards, and above all people – designers, welders, fitters, technicians, transport equipment operators, surveillance workers and dozens of companies cooperating with both projects.

That's what it looks like. shipbuilding in their most tangible form – years of work, which eventually take shape of large steel structures ready to go down to the water.

Already tomorrow in Szczecin, the last module of a large floating dock will hit the water. Sunday in Gdynia Wind He will leave the hull hall for the first time and be set up by the waterfront. Four days later, on 13 August, in the Gulf of Gdańsk will be its proper launching.

And for such days the Polish shipbuilding industry has been waiting for years. Me and her.