A joint effort between Austal USA and Alabama Shipyard has produced the largest vessel ever slid into the water from a Mobile-area shipyard. The two companies celebrated the launch of the AFDM 15, a new auxiliary floating dry dock built for the U.S. Navy, sending it into the Mobile River in a milestone moment for the region’s shipbuilding industry.
At 694 feet long and weighing in around 12,000 tons, the AFDM 15 dwarfs anything previously built along the Mobile waterfront. It easily surpasses the 616-foot tanker American Phoenix, which held the local size record after its 2011 launch. For Austal USA, which has operated in Mobile for 26 years, the AFDM 15 launch stands as the single largest vessel the company has ever put in the water.
The Navy’s First New Floating Dry Dock in Decades
What makes the AFDM 15 especially notable isn’t just its size, but its purpose. The vessel is the U.S. Navy’s first auxiliary floating dry dock to be constructed in more than 40 years. Floating dry docks like the AFDM 15 serve as mobile repair platforms, capable of partially submerging to receive a ship or submarine and then rising to lift the vessel entirely out of the water for hull maintenance, inspections and repairs, all without the need for a fixed, land-based dry dock facility.
The Navy has increasingly relied on aging floating dry docks to keep its fleet maintained, making the addition of a newly built unit a significant boost to the service’s repair capacity. Building the first one in four decades in Mobile underscores the growing role that Gulf Coast shipbuilders are playing in supporting the nation’s naval readiness.
A Milestone for Austal USA and the Local Economy
Austal USA has grown into one of Mobile’s most prominent employers since establishing its shipyard on the Mobile River, building a reputation for constructing aluminum-hulled vessels for the Navy, including littoral combat ships and expeditionary fast transports, as well as steel vessels through more recent expansions. The company’s partnership with Alabama Shipyard on the AFDM 15 project reflects the kind of collaborative shipbuilding work that has become increasingly common as demand for naval vessels and support craft grows.
Shipbuilding remains one of the pillars of Mobile’s industrial economy, supporting thousands of direct jobs and countless more among suppliers, contractors and service providers across South Alabama. Large-scale launches like this one are not only engineering achievements, they are also a visible reminder of the steady stream of federal defense contracts that continue to anchor the city’s working waterfront.
What Comes Next
With the AFDM 15 now in the water, the vessel will move through further outfitting, testing and certification before it is delivered to the Navy and put into service supporting fleet maintenance operations. The launch itself, sending a structure of this scale down the ways and into the Mobile River, required careful coordination between the shipbuilders and marks the culmination of years of construction work.
For Mobile residents accustomed to seeing large vessels move along the river, the AFDM 15 offered a rare spectacle: a dry dock nearly as long as two football fields, representing not just a new record for the local shipbuilding industry but a tangible sign of its continued growth.