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Navantia completes Juan Carlos I maintenance at Puerto Real
Bringing to a close a process that began in July, Navantia has announced that maintenance work on the Spanish Navy’s amphibious ship Juan Carlos I has been completed, with the vessel expected to depart from the Puerto Real shipyard tomorrow. Regarded as the service’s flagship, the ship has spent a total of four months at the facility, where it underwent a comprehensive refit of its engine room alongside the Planned Immobilisation Programme (PIP).
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Local reporting adds that Juan Carlos I had originally been due to sail on 17 October, meaning the current timeline reflects a small delay against the planned completion schedule. Even so, the slip is not expected to prevent the ship from taking part in the Spanish Navy’s main exercises scheduled for next year. Among the most notable is Operation Dédalo, in which the service will demonstrate-together with allied forces-its ability to integrate and conduct amphibious operations.
Engine-room modernisation and the PIP work package
Turning to the work carried out on the force’s flagship-now more than 15 years old-the focus was the modernisation of the engine room following various reports pointing to abnormal vibrations. In 2022, the Council of Ministers approved a project requiring an investment of €30 million, intended to replace the engines fitted to Juan Carlos I with more modern systems.
The gap between that approval and today is explained by the fact that the Spanish Navy already had international operational commitments, which meant Navantia could not secure the ship for the duration needed to carry out the work.
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Propulsion changes: from POD units to ABB Azipod MO1800
More specifically, one of the principal aims of the programme was to replace the two POD units originally manufactured by the German firm Schottel & Siemens-which had been repeatedly cited for suffering various types of failures-with ABB Azipod MO1800 azimuthing units.
According to what the Spanish Navy itself acknowledged in a study commissioned in 2020 to assess the issues affecting the propulsion system and to examine possible replacements, there were faults of both a technical and mechanical nature, as well as internal and external problems. These issues even left the ship without one of its propulsion lines on more than one occasion.
Previous dockings and notable maintenance milestones since 2008
Looking back briefly at the work carried out on the ship since its launch in 2008, four particularly noteworthy milestones can be identified. The first occurred in 2015, when the vessel entered dry dock at the Cádiz shipyard five years after entering service. This was followed by another docking in 2017, during which maintenance focused on the flight deck for almost two months.
Later, in 2020, the Puerto Real yard itself carried out an in-depth overhaul of the propeller system and inspected other systems that normally remain underwater, alongside a complete repaint. In 2023, the engines were removed as part of scheduled maintenance at 20,000 operating hours.
Images used for illustrative purposes
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