Page 47: of Marine News Magazine (August 2017)

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FEATURE: SHIPYARDS

In 2008, Swiftships’ co-production work with foreign governments grew when it signed a contract with Egypt.

At this juncture, “Swiftships is co-producing eleven coast- al patrol craft here in the United States for the Egyptian

Navy,” CEO Shehraze Shah said last month.

To date, Swiftships has built dozens of vessels for Egypt, including steel and aluminum patrol boats, survey vessels and mine hunters. A year ago, the company won a U.S. gov- ernment contract to produce four 28-meter-long Coastal

Patrol Vessel kits for assembly at the Egyptian Ship Building and Repairs Company in Alexandria. Last year, eleven ad- “By incorporating the same, serialized building ditional vessels were contracted for co-production in Egypt.

processes and project management tools that we “In the past 12 months, our big successes have been the ex- developed to support our high-volume, military pansion of our footprint in shipbuilding and co-production ? eet builds, we built and delivered our six-vessel with foreign navies, along with providing follow-on-techni-

NYC Ferry order in what must be record time.” cal support or FOTS to the Iraqi Naval Fleet and service – Chris Allard, Metal Shark’s President life-extension planning or SLEP here at home,” Shah said.

FOTS programs are mostly outside the continental United

States, while SLEP programs are domestic – with the U.S.

Army, Navy and Coast Guard. SLEP programs are designed to lengthen a crafts’ life beyond its initial 15 to 20 years.

Swiftships in 2009 was awarded an FMS contract by the U.S. Navy on behalf of the Iraqi Navy. The contract included establishing a ship repair facility in Umm Qasr.

Images courtesy of Metal Shark

Since then, the company has delivered to Iraq 15 35m pa- trol boats, built in Morgan City. With a 2017 extension intelligence gathering, he said. on this contract, Swiftships will continue providing main- tenance to the Iraqi Navy and Coastal Defense Fleet. To- Conrad Shipyard: Investing in Ops gether with the U.S. Navy, this program allows Swiftships With