Nippon Paint Marine’s NOA 60 HS has been applied to the largest floating dry docks to be deployed in the western hemisphere for Grand Bahama Shipyard
March 2026: Marine coatings leader Nippon Paint Marine has supplied its self-indicating epoxy coating NOA 60 HS, to protect two new floating dry docks for Grand Bahama Shipyard. The floating docks have a huge, combined total of around 1.2 million square metres of surface to be protected. This equates to the area of over 168 full size FIFA football pitches. The dry docks, ‘East End’ and ‘Lucayan’, with lifting capacities of 120,000 tons respectively, will expand the capacity at the yard in Freeport, Grand Bahama and will help to future-proof the repair yard in line with the growing sizes of planned cruise ships.
The largest of the two dry docks was built with an overall length of over 413 metres and a width of 85.11 metres. This provides significant capacity for the Grand Bahama Shipyard to conduct repair work to any cruise vessel in the global fleet. The floating docks are equipped with an automatic dock control system that enables automated floating and lowering operations. The two floating docks were constructed in China by CSSC Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding Co., Ltd and are the largest of their type in the world.
NOA 60 HS is Nippon Paint Marine’s self-indicating epoxy coating, which provides long lasting anticorrosive protection in harsh marine environments. Crucially, NOA’s self-indicating technology assists sprayers, inspectors, the yard and owners to ensure that these heavy-duty coatings are applied to the correct thickness to ensure corrosion protection, especially on edges and corners where achieving the correct specified thickness is fundamental to long-term performance – essential on the huge areas that we needed to be coated.
Interior water ballast spaces showing coated structural framing (top left), coated internal bulkheads and stiffeners (top right), The bottom images show the effectiveness of NOA’s self indication. Areas of low thickness can be found visually even in areas where thickness gauges cannot be used.
Nippon Paint Marine’s deck coating, NEOGUARD SPIKE was also specified for some areas on the docks. NEOGUARD SPIKE, formulated with a non-slip epoxy resin combined with a hard-wearing alumina aggregate, provides hardwearing and safe solutions for weather decks and passages. The coating has excellent resistance to impact damage as well as to seawater and chemicals. The coating is certified for low flame spread and is therefore suitable for the decks on platforms and internal safety decks on the docks.
CSSC Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding Co., Ltd, commented: “Working with Grand Bahama Shipyard, Carnival Corporation and Royal Caribbean International, we understood the vital importance of reliable, durable and tough coatings for their largest ever floating dry docks. The NOA systems from Nippon Paint Marine provided assurance that the coatings would perform to the standards and expectations of the owners and ensured that we were able to deliver the highest quality products to our clients.”
Nippon Paint Marine, commented: “Our team is proud to advise Beihai Shipyard and support on the delivery of effective coatings protection for the ‘East End’ floating dry dock and the even larger ‘Lucayan’ dry dock which delivered to Grand Bahama Shipyard in 2026. We sincerely appreciate the close collaboration with all parties involved in this landmark project, and we look forward to supporting future projects together.”
Corrosion protection as well as slip-resistance are essential and fundamental requirements in coatings applied to these new floating dry-docks. Long-term immersion and extended static periods in a marine environment require durable coatings to withstand constant exposure to saltwater, impacts from berthing operations and deployment of heavy equipment. NOA’s unique self-indicating technology is an example of the continuing commitment of Nippon Paint Marine to research and development that support the needs of its maritime customers.
