World’s largest hospital ship passes sea trials

Mercy Ships has announced that Global Mercy has now completed deep water sea trials, one of the final milestones in the countdown towards the hospital ship’s delivery, equipping, maiden voyage and launch into service to sub-Saharan Africa in 2022.

As the world’s largest purpose-built civilian hospital ship, Global Mercy has a design draft of 6.15m and a service speed of 12 knots. The new vessel is the first ship built from design to implementation by the charity as all previous ships were adapted from other purposes. Global Mercy will join the current Mercy Ship, Africa Mercy in service to sub-Saharan and Central Africa.

Global Mercy represents an international collaboration. With an overall length of 174m, and a beam of 28.6m the ship is a tailored passenger ship-class vessel.

“These deep-water trials represent a critical checklist for our new purpose-built ship to become the platform for service it is designed to be. Trials systematically test operational aspects by putting the vessel through paces for an extended period at sea. I am pleased to say that Global Mercy successfully passed every test,” says Jim Paterson, marine executive consultant for Mercy Ships. “We are then left with some finishing touches in the interior, particularly the hospital area before we take delivery.”

The ship will make its maiden voyage to Belgium as a guest of the Port of Antwerp. While docked, Global Mercy will complete several months of final outfitting and crewing. This includes installation of medical equipment and IT systems as well as stocking the vessel with supplies through the Mercy Ships European Distribution Centre in the Netherlands. The visit to Europe will culminate in a final send-off from Rotterdam for the ship’s first voyage to Africa. Mercy Ships also plans to hold an Africa commissioning event for the arrival of Global Mercy in Dakar in early 2022, at the start of the ship’s first field service in Senegal.

Global Mercy will be equipped with first-class training facilities to allow Mercy Ships to contribute to the sustainable support of essential surgical and related skills for local healthcare professionals when docked. Purpose-designed hospital decks represent the unique heart of the ship, consisting of six operating theatres and hospital wards for 200 patients, laboratory, general outpatient, ophthalmology and dental clinics. The ship has space for up to 950 persons in port, including 641 crew, comprised of volunteers from around the globe.