On August 3, the world’s first deep-sea intelligent fishery farming platform, “Zhanjiang Bay No. 1,” built by Jiangsu Dajin Heavy Industry Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tianhai防务, successfully embarked on its trial voyage from Tongzhou Bay. This marks a successful exploration by Nantong’s shipbuilding and marine engineering enterprises in modernized and intelligent fishery farming models, filling a gap in deep-sea intelligent fishery farming both in China and globally.
“Zhanjiang Bay No. 1” was independently developed by the Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhanjiang). It is the world’s first floating dynamic positioning aquaculture platform integrating multiple functions such as semi-submerged marine farming, autonomous navigation for typhoon avoidance, green energy supply, and intelligent control. Designed for unlimited navigation areas, it has an overall length of 154 meters, a beam of 44 meters, a depth of 24.25 meters, a maximum farming draft of 20 meters, and a farming water volume of 80,000 cubic meters, equivalent to the volume of 32 standard swimming pools.
“Zhanjiang Bay No. 1” is a marine farming facility combining a column-stabilized truss platform with a ship-shaped bow and stern. Its main structure is fully welded, featuring a forecastle, wheelhouse, accommodation block, sterncastle, vertical bow, and square stern. The platform is equipped with two fully rotatable rudder-propeller units at the stern and two lateral thrusters at the bow. It employs an all-electric propulsion system, a floating dynamic positioning system, and a temporary mooring system. The floating dynamic positioning system enables fixed-position farming, while the platform’s propulsion system allows for relocation farming or emergency typhoon avoidance when environmental conditions are unsuitable. The platform will primarily be used for experimental farming of pelagic fish such as golden pomfret, amberjack, and tuna.
This platform actively responds to the national call to “develop the marine economy, protect the marine ecological environment, and accelerate the construction of a strong maritime nation.” It will continue to support the high-quality development of smart fisheries and contribute to advancing the marine economy.
To meet the special requirements of deep-sea farming environments, the platform proposes a South China Sea-wide fishery farming model of “primarily static with dynamic flexibility” through a multi-energy complementary self-supply intelligent management mechanism. It conducts experimental research on “semi-submerged marine farming, floating dynamic positioning, autonomous navigation for typhoon avoidance, green energy supply, comfortable living conditions, and intelligent system functions,” aiming to establish a normalized floating dynamic positioning marine comprehensive test platform. This initiative breaks the depth constraints on fishery farming areas in the South China Sea and leads the marine fishery farming industry into deeper waters.
