Page 26: of Marine News Magazine (May 2017)

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BARGE BUILDING & OUTFITTING

The

Many

Missions (and Capabilities) of Weeks Marine

The almost 100-year old ? rm has many specialties, including the ability to construct innovative, complicated tonnage for its own purposes.

By Joseph Keefe he slowdown in barge construction in some sectors for use in the protection of the temporary highway offshore hasn’t dampened the need for specialty barges in of the FDR Drive in Manhattan – were to be used as wing

Tother areas. In many cases, these mission require- walls. David Forrest, naval architect with JMS Naval Archi- ments can involve the repurposing of existing tonnage us- tects & Salvage Engineers, took the lead design role in the ing sometimes innovative and unusual design parameters. project. John T. Devlin, Sr. of Weeks Marine told Marine-

Such was the case when Cranford, NJ-based Weeks Ma- News, “David was the inspiration behind this project. I rine (WMI) completed the conversion of an existing ABS can’t say enough about his knowledge and vision on this.” deck barge into a loadline compliant, semi-submersible, all Forrest says simply that the project was a good