Damen Shipyards has delivered a ship to the aerospace company Blue Origin that will be used to retrieve rockets from the sea.
The newbuilding, named “Jacklyn”, arrived at its home port in Cape Canaveral on 4 September. The ship is to be used as a sea-based platform for the “New Glenn” program and will be deployed for the recovery of missiles. It is equipped with a Liebherr crane (114 m) for this purpose.
Damen newbuilding was towed across the Atlantic
The ship is 116 metres long and has a width of 46 metres. It was built in Romania in 2023, with the final work taking place in Brest, France, in April 2024. On 8 August “Jacklyn” (named after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ mother) was brought to Florida by an ocean-going tugboat.
Marnix Brouwer, Area Manager North America at Damen, said after the Jacklyn’s arrival in Cape Canaveral: “We are proud to be able to contribute to this groundbreaking space mission. We thank Blue Origin for the trust placed in the team here at Damen.”
Officially, the floating platform does not comply with the Jones Act because it was not built in the USA. The law stipulates that ships operating in the US domestic market must be built by American shipyards and operated by US shipping companies. The crew must also be American. However, as the “Jacklyn” will be recovering the missiles for Blue Origin outside US territorial waters, it does not violate the law and may be operated.
