Vigor Marine replaces bow of 80,000 bbl barge

DECEMBER 12, 2012 — Vigor Marine, Portland, Ore., has replaced the bow of Olympic Spirit, an 80,000 bbl double hull petroleum barge owned by Harley Marine subsidiary, Olympic Tug & Barge, Inc.

The job was carried out in less than three months. Meeting the aggressive schedule saved Harley costly down time.

“This was a very unique project that you just can’t do in any shipyard,” said Harley Franco, Founder & CEO of Harley Marine Services.  “So we went to Vigor, who we thought would be the best facility and the best place on the West Coast to meet that challenge. The size of this bow, how to stage the job effectively and get us back out to sea as quickly as possible were major considerations. How our organizations worked together to accomplish our goals was, to me, a testimony to innovation. It all went into place very, very well. Vigor exceeded our expectations.”

Vigor says the bow replacement of Olympic Spirit was “necessitated by some mistakes that were made during the original construction of the barge.”

Harley worked closely with naval architect, Elliott Bay Design Group, on the most effective strategy to bring Olympic Spirit up to its standards.

It was decided a total bow replacement was the best solution.

The 300-ton bow module was pre-built in a section of Vigor’s 150,000 square feet of fabrication bays in its Swan Island shipyard in Portland, Oregon allowing the vessel to continue operations. As the module neared completion, the Olympic Spirit was transported to the Portland yard and lifted by one of Vigor’s floating drydocks and positioned at the end of a 800 foot long buildway. There the existing bow was removed and the new module was attached.

The design work provided by Harley and Elliott Bay enabled Vigor Marine to retain the forward collision bulkhead, speeding and simplifying installation.