Many thanks to Zee Bart for sending along these photos he took in Ijmuiden, the port where the locks are at the west end of the North Sea Canal, the waterway linking Amsterdam with the North Sea. Check out the dredge.
This dredge started life as a container ship, Gerd! After 78 days in drydock and 22,000 hours of skilled work, the container ship became a dredge. See more detail here. Yed Prior is a star in the constellation of Ophiuchus.
Rollingstone is another conversion story, also spotted near Ijmuiden.
You can probably see what her earlier incarnation was when she worked for Dockwise . . . now Boskalis.
Of course, she was a semi-submersible heavy lift ship. She was called Super Servant 1, and now she’s a pipe burying vessel.
Thanks to Zee Bart for sending these along. More Zee Bart (aka Sea Bart) here.
I have done “second lives” posts about transformations like these.
tugster: a waterblog 
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February 19, 2022 at 12:47 pm
Les Sonnenmark
The dredge conversions are really interesting. By necessity, the Dutch are the world leaders in dredge technology and construction. Note that USACE is in the early stages of procuring a replacement for dredge McFarland, which has kept shipping channels clear for decades in the New York-New Jersey-Delaware Bay area, and has been featured by Tugster in the past. A draft specification has recently been published. I’m sure that her replacement, while US-built by law (she has to be Jones Act compliant), will incorporate substantial Dutch technology and equipment. That’s been the case for most large USACE and commercial dredges built in the US in recent years.
McFarland is a unique vessel–the world’s only dredge that can sidecast, bottom dump, and pump out through a pipeline. She’ll be decommissioned after her replacement is put in service. No plans yet for disposition of the old ship.
February 21, 2022 at 9:59 am
tugster
Thanks, Les. Put McFarland in the search window and you’ll find previous posts. Here’s an announcement about the search for a replacement: https://www.marinelog.com/inland-coastal/dredging/corps-looks-to-replace-56-year-old-hopper-dredge/
February 22, 2022 at 4:56 pm
tugster
Here’s another former semi-submersible: https://www.timurbozca.com/ok