SANYA, June 27. /TASS/. Nanshan Port in Yazhouwan Bay has become a base for Chinese research ships. That's according to a report by the Hainan Daily newspaper.
In late June, the research ship Tanso-1 with a deep-sea manned submersible Fendouzhe ("Striver") on board entered the port. At the same time, three other research ships, the Dian Ke 1, the Bei Diao 996 and the Xiang Yang Hong 18, are in port.
As the newspaper noted, it is a rare moment when all four vessels are in port at the same time between expeditions. The Dian Ke 1 ship is rotating its crew, and the other ships are replenishing supplies and materials.
Nanshan Port in Sanya has a number of advantages over other such facilities. At only 164 kilometers away, the sea depth is about 1,000 meters, allowing research ships to make trips to the area to test and debug equipment in one day.
Nanshan Port in Yazhouwan Bay currently has a 264.3-meter-long berth where two ships of 100 meters each or three ships of 50 meters each can dock at the same time. The port authority said it has been instructed to allow six research ships to simultaneously berth, but the arrival of the Liyan 358 and Hai Hong 1 ships has been postponed to a later date.
Since 2020, the port has received 255 research vessels from 40 institutions in China, including the Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the State Oceanic Administration of the PRC, China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Zhejiang University (Hangzhou City), the Ocean University of China and Northwestern Polytechnic University (Xi'an).