Two Tampa shipyards combine operations

“Gulf Marine is known for its quality repairs,” said Rick Watts, the newly appointed President of Gulf Marine. “The intent of this consolidation is to create a focus, flexibility, and competitiveness that will meet both the needs of existing customers and the emerging markets.”

Though the combined operations will be carried out under the name Gulf Marine, Hendry Corporation will maintain its identity. It has a rich history in Port Tampa Bay. The original company was started by Captain F.M. Hendry in 1926 as Shell Producers Company, and in 1942, the name was changed to Hendry Corporation.

“This 89-year-old company was founded by owner Aaron Hendry’s father. We value this history and want to continue Mr. Hendry’s long-lived success,” said Mr. Watts.

The transition will result in the combination of shipyard assets and work forces, creating a seamless service provider with a much broader customer offering and a much deeper talent pool.

“We value all of our employees and want to keep them here,” said Mr. Watts. “Repairing tug/barge units and ships is not an easy job. Our employees take pride in what they do, and we take pride in our relationship with our employees.”

The combined companies recently created an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, which will allow all team members to participate in the success of the newly combined company. The plan is one of the first of its kind in the ship repair industry and is designed to reflect the company’s commitment to engaging and maintaining a world class ship repair work force.

“Employees now have the added incentive to remain with our company because each employee will benefit from his/her ownership interest in the company,” said Mr. Watts.

Gulf Marine’s facilities provide vessel owners with a one-stop shop for quality, efficient, and innovative ship repair. In addition to ship repair services, the shipyard offers maritime remediation and gas-freeing services through its affiliate, Universal Environmental Solutions, allowing vessels to conveniently undergo all services at one location.

In addition to commercial and government ship repair, Gulf Marine and its affiliated companies offer a range of maritime services that include drydock construction, steel fabrication, stevedoring and marine terminal operations, marine environmental services, and maritime employee staffing

Electric Boat gets Navy awards worth $149.4 million

NOVEMBER 25, 2015 —General Dynamics Electric Boat, Groton, CT,  has received modifications worth a total of $149.4 million to two Navy contracts. The larger award, worth $102,876,417, is for additional lead yard

Canadian shipbuilders in spat over interim oiler contract

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

Metal Shark delivers multipurpose port security vessel

 

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.

 

Donjon Shipbuilding makes major lighting upgrade

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.”

SAFE Boats to build riverine interceptors for Colombia

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

Australian shipbuilding acquisition in the works

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.

Swiftships gets $16.5 million Iraq FMS award

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.

Triyards adds escort tugs to product line

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.

Conrad Shipyards bolsters backlog with new orders

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

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