Vigor transfers dry dock to Seattle

Vigor's Vigilant floating dry dock

MAY 18, 2015 — Vigor Industrial has towed its 14,000-long ton capacity floating dry dock Vigilant from Portland, OR, to Seattle, WA.

The 528-foot long dry dock will enable Vigor to continue to compete with California and U.S. Gulf Coast shipyards for ship repair, maintenance and shipbuilding contracts. The Vigilant replaces a sister dry dock that was decommissioned in February.

Vigor began planning the move of the Vigilant to Seattle after the 80,000-long ton capacity Vigorous, the largest floating dry dock in the country, was purchased and arrived at the company’s Portland yard late last year.

The company performed some upgrades on the Vigilant to withstand the more challenging saltwater environment in Seattle after spending its first 70 years in the fresh water of the Willamette River, and also to make it more nimble for disconnect and reconnect functions utilized in vessel fabrication. The upgrades are expected to give the dry dock an additional lifespan of at least 25 years.

“This is a needed and valuable asset for our Seattle yard, our workers and the local maritime economy,” said Adam Beck, Vigor’s executive vice president of ship repair. “We were temporarily down to one dry dock and getting back to two will enable us to continue to perform construction, repair and maintenance work of a scope that few other shipyards anywhere can match.”

Vigor says that when it had two large-scale dry docks in use last year, it had the capacity in Seattle not only to continue building ferries for Washington State Ferries and working on other vessels, but also to successfully compete with other shipyards across the country to build a new fireboat for the San Francisco Fire Department.

“Bringing this asset to Seattle is consistent with our approach of strategically building our capabilities, workforce development and geographic mass from Oregon and Washington to Alaska,” Mr. Beck said. “Our greatest asset is our workers, but infrastructure such as this dry dock is also critically important for efficiently serving our customers.”