NOVEMBER 24, 2015 — Canadian shipbuilders are embroiled in a spat over the Resolve-Class AOR interim fleet oiler being created by Chantier Davie Canada Inc. by converting a 183 m containership to
Based on Metal Shark’s Defiant-class monohull pilothouse design, the welded aluminum vessel is designed to support port security efforts and firefighting missions at the port district, located 20 miles south of New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi River.
For this application, Metal Shark equipped the vessel with twin Cat C-18 diesel engines mated to Hamilton water jets. The 55 Defiant is also available with straight shaft inboards or pods.
To meet the customer’s fire fighting requirements, Metal Shark employed twin Darley fire pumps driven by PTO from the main engines. Water is pumped to an oversized main where it is distributed via electronic valves to three radio frequency-controlled monitors – one on the bow, and two mounted on the roof of the vessel. In this configuration, the 55 Defiant delivers water flow of up to 10,000 gallons per minute. Two 5″ hydrant outlet locations, an additional 2.5″ hydrant outlet, and a 300-gallon foam reservoir provide maximum flexibility across the widest possible range of tactical firefighting scenarios.
Metal Shark’s use of “pillarless” pilothouse glass gives the vessel’s roomy wheelhouse substantially increased visibility compared to pilothouses of conventional design.
With belowdecks quarters offering enclosed head, galley, and bunking capacity for a crew of four, the 55 Defiant is equipped to stay on station for extended periods and to accommodate crews during lengthy patrols.
A state of the art, positive-pressure Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and high-yield Explosive (CBRNE) ventilation system provides crew protection in disaster response situations.
“Metal Shark has worked closely with fire departments, law enforcement agencies, and the military to develop what we feel are the most advanced and crew friendly fire rescue patrol vessels available today,” says Metal Shark’s president Chris Allard. “It was an honor to be selected by the Plaquemines Port Harbor and Terminal District for this project and we are pleased to add them to the growing list of Metal Shark customers.”
A product of Metal Shark’s Franklin, LA, shipyard, the 55′ Defiant can be custom-configured to suit a wide range of mission profiles. Metal Shark offers the vessel with a wide range of power and propulsion systems to meet various performance requirements. Virtually every vessel feature can be adapted to suit the needs of individual customers and agencies.
In addition to port security and fire rescue, the 55 Defiant can be configured for dive support, law enforcement, defense, pilot operations, and numerous commercial markets.
Defiant-class vessels are available in a wide range of sizes for inshore, nearshore, and offshore patrol.
Established in 1986, Gravois Aluminum Boats LLC, and its government/commercial boat entity Metal Shark Boats are leading suppliers of custom boats for defense, law enforcement, and commercial entities.
Located on the Lake Erie shore, the over 200,000 sq. ft. shipyard facility has a 92-foot ceiling height on the main floor, plus a 125-foot high ceiling over a portion of the massive graving dock, one of only two on the Great Lakes able to accommodate 1,000-foot self-unloading vessels for construction, repair, conversion, repowering and maintenance.
With conventional metal halide fixtures, lighting maintenance was a major headache. Even with no fewer than 266 metal halide fixtures in place, fewer than 60 of the 1,000 W lights were typically in operation at any given time.
In addition to the notoriously short life of the metal halide lamps, the damp, harsh, high-vibration environment inside the open air facility took a major toll on both bulbs and ballasts. And the exceptional ceiling height was a major obstacle to easily changing bulbs and fixtures.
Without proper lighting, the sheer size of Donjon’s facilities made them appear cavernous and dark even on the brightest, sunny days. The lackluster color rendering of the metal halides even contributed to visibility issues with their unnatural orange glow. And, when it came time to turn on the lights at the start of their 24-hour, 5 day-a-week operation, the metal halides took nearly 20 minutes to come up to full output.
“The lighting was not sufficient enough to fully light the facility. There were places in the building where we had to use a flashlight, even when we weren’t inside a ballast tank,” said Caleb Hoffman, Electrical Lead Man. “A flashlight was on everyone’s required tool list. It was difficult to read a tape measure without one, and accuracy in measurement is very important in our work.”
The Solution: Dialight 60,000 Lumen LED
Aiming to end its lighting woes with an upgrade, Donjon began looking at vendor proposals. It didn’t take long to realize that LED was the way to go and Donjon opted to replace the metal halide fixtures with 60,000 lumen Vigilant High Bay LED fixtures from Dialight plc, an international market leader in LED lighting with North American headquarters in Farmingdale, NJ.
“We assumed LED is the latest and greatest technology, giving us the best bang for the buck,” Mr. Hoffman said. “We chose Dialight because it best suited our application, and the warranty was a huge factor.”
Dialight’s 60,000 lumen Vigilant High Bay is the first LED fixture of its kind to offer a true one-to-one replacement for conventional 1,000W high output fixtures. Delivering 115 lumens per Watt with the 480 V top hat transformer at half the power consumption of the existing metal halides, the high-output Vigilant provided more than enough light to meet Donjon’s needs, while also drastically reducing per-fixture electricity costs.
The new Vigilants are so bright thar Donjon was able to eliminate two-thirds of the fixtures in the facility, replacing 266 metal halides with 79 Dialight 60,000 lumen Vigilants.
At roughly half the weight of conventional fixtures, the Dialight Vigilants were easy for Donjon’s in-house electrical crew to install on the existing circuits. With an ambient temperature rating of -40°F to + 149°F and high-durability fixture design, the new Vigilants can easily tolerate the harsh Lake Erie weather.
The entire fixture is backed by Dialight’s 10-year, full-performance warranty, so Donjon is now guaranteed to have ample lighting with zero maintenance for a decade or more.
The clear, bright white output of the Dialight LEDs makes a difference in visibility that is like “night and day” compared to the old fixtures, according to Donjon staff. Flashlights are no longer required on the shop floor, even in the graving dock where the lights are 125-feet off the ground. The high-performance optics deliver directional light exactly where it’s needed, with no dark spots or harsh glare.
“We compared three different manufacturers, and Dialight was hands-down the best fit for our application,” Mr. Hoffman said. “One other company promised more hours on the fixtures, but couldn’t back it with a warranty. The 10-year warranty, ease of installation and energy efficiency―Dialight offered the whole package that was better for our situation.”
NOVEMBER 19, 2015—SAFE Boats International, Bremerton, WA, will build a series of Type-F Riverine Interceptor Vessels under a contract with the Colombian Navy and Coast Guard. Under the contract, SAFE Boats will
Today, Civmec revealed that it is poised to acquire the Forgacs shipbuilding business.
Forgacs is Australia’s largest privately-owned engineering and shipbuilding company and part of the team building the Hobart Class Air Warfare Destroyers (AWD) for the Royal Australian Navy, manufacturing 37 of 93 AWD blocks at its indoor modular shipbuilding facilities.
Singapore listed line with Civmec said today that it has agreed to enter into a due diligence phase for the acquisition of certain Forgacs assets and the Forgacs name.
The proposed acquisition includes a purpose-built shipbuilding site. Forgacs Shipyard – Tomago is located 14 km from the Port ofNewcastle, NSW on the Hunter River. The 17 hectare site has 535 meters of river frontage with two ship basins. The acquisition also includes plant and equipment currently located at the Forgacs Hexham heavy engineering workshop and at the Forgacs Gladstone heavy engineering workshop.
Forgacs’ products’ business, Forgacs-Broens Pty Limited, does not form part of the sale and will continue to operate from its Ingleburn, NSW and Elizabeth, SA facilities.
Civmec says it believes that “the considerable opportunities in the infrastructure sectors on the east coast as well as the long-term outlook within the defense, oil & gas and metals & minerals sectors justifies the investment.”
Civmec CEO Pat Tallon said, “This is a very exciting opportunity for our company to extend our multi-disciplinary operations to the east coast of Australia and to gain a long established foothold in the defense shipbuilding industry. It will also give us the opportunity to acquire in-house submarine building and technical expertise. We will be well positioned to capitalize on the significant infrastructure expenditure planned for the east coast and our increased capacity will allow Civmec to deepen our relationship with existing blue chip clients nationally, as well as bringing on board new regional clients.”
Peter Burgess, Chairman of the Forgacs Group commented, “Forgacs has more than 50 years’ experience in the heavy engineering and projects business and entered the naval ship repair business in 1990. It has grown its naval involvement progressively, undertaking major naval programs including the conversion of HMAS Manoora and HMAS Kanimbla into Amphibious Helicopter support ships; hull modules for the ANZAC frigates and most recently the AWD program. The Tomago shipyard has built some of Australia’s iconic ships such as ice breaker Aurora Australis, HMAS Tobruk and hull sections of Collins Class submarines. Our shipyard is ideally positioned for Civmec’s future plans.”
Subject to satisfactory due diligence, necessary stakeholder approval and the finalization of the sale and purchase agreement, Civmec expects to complete the transaction in December 2015.
Quite how, if at all, this fits in with Civmec’s submarine building ambitions remains to be seen. When it unveiled those plans it said that it had the capability to be the in-country builder for whoever won the submarine contract and that it would add a new dedicated facility for building submarines at its Henderson, Western Australia, facility — which is quite some ways distant from the Forgacs shipyard.
Just to add to the confusion, Australian media reported today that the Australian Government has yet to decide whether to build eight or twelve boats and that the French, German and Japanese bidders for the program had agreed to build them at the ASC facility in South Australia.
The contractor will provide technical expertise in preventative and planned maintenance, emergent repairs, and platform overhaul support services for Iraqi patrol boats, off-shore vessels, and defender boats.
The modification includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this modification to $27,294,245.
Work will be performed on Umm Qasr Naval Base, Iraq, and is expected to be complete by April 2016. FMS funding in the amount of $16,531,014 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity.
It has won an order to build four RAstar 3400 Azimuth Stern Drive tugs for new client Greenbay Marine Pte Ltd, a Singapore-based internationalspecialist marine craft group.
The four vessels are expected to be delivered in early 2017 and Triyards says the order is worth some $12.8 million, excluding owner-furnished equipment.
Powered by 4,400 kW engines, each of the 34-m tugs will be constructed for escort operations in adverse sea and weather conditions.
NOVEMBER 16, 2015—Like many shipbuilders along the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, Conrad Industries, Inc., Morgan City, LA, is feeling the pinch of the downturn in the oil patch and the drop in
It covers five vessels operated by ship management major Norbulk Shipping and owned by Netherlands headquartered shipping group Vroon.
The contract gives the shipyard a sizable debut in specialized EGS work. With all five ships also undergoing special survey drydocking, the job is the Gibraltar yard’s largest single assignment in 2015. It is the first series retrofit EGS win for any Southern European yard.
“We are the first shipyard in the region to win a major exhaust scrubber project,” said Gibdock Managing Director Richard Beards. “Our ideal location means that we are always attractive for owners considering this area. Gibdock’s competitiveness, high quality workmanship and on-schedule redelivery has led to this breakthrough deal, which opens a new chapter in the industry’s EGS installation work options.”
Gibdock’s workload included the 37,500 dwt product tanker Great Eastern, the third of the five Norbulk vessels being fitted with PureSOx main engine, auxiliary engine and boiler EGS units from Alfa Laval. The hybrid PureSOx system removes over 98% of SOx emissions from exhaust gases and up to 80% of particulates.
EGS installation work onboard Great Eastern included 90 tonnes of newly fabricated steel, the laying of 12,386 m of electrical cabling and 1,134 m of GRE pipes involving 800 flanges and elbows.
Special survey work included a hull washing, spot grit-blasting and coating job, overhauling of sea valves, propeller withdrawal, bonding of stern seals, rudder clearances, bow thruster overhauling, windlass winch bearing renewal, overhauling of boiler safety valves,pipeworks, insulation works and various other routine dry-dock works. These tasks took place at the same time as the EGS installation, with the ship redelivered on schedule and on budget in 20 days.
Mr. Beards said the time taken for redelivery to Norbulk of subsequent ships has been shortened as projects have progressed.
To optimize EGS retrofit processes, Gibdock undertakes prefabrication for smaller blocks in its workshops, with transfer to the yard’s Pad 1 area, completed in 2014, allowing further structural and assembly work to be completed alongside Drydock 1 in a timely fashion for drydocking.
“Pad 1 was pivotal in optimising workflow,” said John Taylor, Gibdock Operations Director. “No other regional yard has a comparable purpose-built zone for EGS foundation and structural work before vessels arrive.
“This has been an intense collaboration, involving different Gibdock departments, naval architects, the Norbulk project team, Alfa Laval, and our electrical and piping systems subcontractors. Optimised planning, materials purchasing, equipment deployment and job sequencing for EGS work are now part of Gibdock’s competitive advantage.”
NOVEMBER 15, 2015 — Huntington Ingalls Industries’ (NYSE:HII) Ingalls Shipbuilding division christened the company’s sixth U.S. Coast Guard National Security Cutter (NSC), Munro (WMSL 755), November 14 in front of nearly 600