West Sea has built one of Europe’s busiest small ship orderbooks: a Windstar newbuild delivered last year, a Windstar conversion nearing completion, a luxury vessel for a new Japanese cruise brand and a steady stream of Portuguese Navy patrol ships.

What it doesn’t have yet is the drydock capacity to keep pace.

The yard’s third drydock, a 220-by-45-meter facility designed to take larger ships, has been delayed and is not expected to be finished until 2028, according to Viana do Castelo’s city council, which approved tax incentives for the project in February 2025.

The price tag has climbed too, from about 4 million euros when the project was first floated in 2020 to roughly 24 million euros today. West Sea blames the delays on an environmental impact study.

Two docks, three markets

Meanwhile, the existing two drydocks are busy. West Sea delivered the Star Seeker to Windstar last December and is now converting the World Explorer into the Star Explorer for a December 2026 debut, stripping out its expedition features for a full luxury refit.

Nearby, the Sefu, a 10,000-ton yacht-style vessel for Japan’s R Yacht, continues to take shape.

Board member Vitor Figueiredo said the mix of cruise, naval and commercial work is by design.

The naval work alone provides years of runway. The Portuguese Navy has six ocean patrol vessels on order, from the Porto, reportedly due in 2027, through later ships such as the Aveiro, due in 2028.

Figueiredo pointed to the Star Seeker and Star Explorer, two very different engineering jobs, as proof the approach is paying off. Both, he said, “reinforce the importance of much detailed planning, lots of close collaboration with both owners and the suppliers, and then rigorous project execution from our side.”

Centuries of shipbuilding

Viana do Castelo’s shipbuilding roots go back centuries, long before West Sea’s parent, the Martifer Group, took over the former state-owned ENVC yard in 2014 after its liquidation.

“Since West Sea assumed operations at the former ENVC facilities in 2014, the yard has now developed experience across a huge range of vessel types and many different project categories,” Figueiredo said.

“Rather than just focusing exclusively on a single market, West Sea’s approach is to maintain the ultimate flexibility to respond to whatever the customer needs and market demands.”

Once complete, the new drydock should let West Sea compete for larger cruise and commercial projects than its current infrastructure can accommodate.