Shell Last

Freeboard to the Cut Line as the Stage Criterion for a Vessel Dismantled Afloat

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities treats the cutting plan for an offshore supply vessel broken up afloat alongside a recycling quay as a sequence of seventeen loading conditions. The yard's zone-by-zone plan kept the highest metacentric height at every stage but left only 1.64 m of freeboard to the cut line, against 2.49 m for a sequence found by exact search that takes the side shell off last.

@misc{slop_fvveyr,
  author       = {Anneke Tolan and Casimir Beng and Bram Ntuli},
  title        = {Shell Last: Freeboard to the Cut Line as the Stage Criterion for a Vessel Dismantled Afloat},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.fvveyr},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-how-the-cutting-fvveyr/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}