Instead of sitting in the dry dock supported by numerous props and stays, it would be suspended in a Kevlar cradle on a cantilevered steel frame disguised to look like the surface of the sea.

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The current HMS Campbeltown, which is about to be decommissioned, bears the name of a vessel deliberately blown up in an attempt to destroy a dry dock in occupied France in 1942.

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It said the next voyage would go ahead on Thursday but an Adriatic cruise in October has been cancelled while the ship is repaired in a German dry dock.

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By the mid-1920s, the Cutty Sark was the only one still afloat and in 1954 it was transferred to its current dry-dock site in Greenwich.

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With the ship considered beyond economic repair, its final destination is expected to be a dry dock in Sicily, where it will be cut up.

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They wanted to transfer it to Rosemont, where it would become a dry-dock casino floating in 2 feet of water, miles from the closest river.

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With 67 berths and extensive dry-dock facilities, it is the largest man-made port in the world and the largest port in the Gulf region and in the Middle East.

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