Page 24: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 15, 1984)

U.S. Yards (continued from page 24) retary John F. Lehman Jr. an- nounced that Lockheed Shipbuild- ing had won one of the two design and production feasibility con- tracts for production planning of additional LCACs for second-source procurement. Congress had di- rected the Naval Sea Systems

Command to secure a second source (other than Bell Aerospace-Tex- tron) to build this class of craft.

The construction contract will be announced in April 1985.

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MARINETTE MARINE

Marinette Marine Corporation (MMC) in Northern Wisconsin is in its 28th year as a builder of de- fense-related marine equipment, and is well known for its versatil- ity in the design and construction of Navy ships and craft of all types.

MMC, under contract to the Na- val Sea Systems Command, is pro- ducing a new generation of Mine

Countermeasure (MCM) vessels in its 70,000-square-foot MCM ship erection building, which was spe- cifically designed and constructed to accommodate the construction of these vessels. This new facility enables MMC to build, in an envi- ronmentally controlled area, two

MCMs simultaneously.

The keel was laid for the second vessel of this class, the Champion (MCM-4) in June this year, while construction of the first, the De- fender (MCM-2), is well under way. The 224-foot laminated wood hull, sheathed in glass-reinforced plastic, represents one of the most sophisticated and capable mine countermeasure ship classes ever built in the U.S. or the world.

Under another Navy contract,

MCM has completed and submit- ted its Minesweeper Hunter (MSH) contract design for evaluation, and looks forward to contract award for lead ship construction later this year. The company's MSH de- sign proposes the hull and super- structure to be constructed of mon- ocoque glass-reinforced plastic, which is advantageous to the mis- sion requirements of this vessel.

The MSH is capable of conducting operations against surface and subsurface targets, either inde- pendently or as a part of a larger force to support the naval and coastline defense of the U.S.

Delivery of the first of eight Tor- pedo Weapon Retrievers (TWR) will begin in October this year, with final delivery in September of 1985. The Navy awarded a con- tract for five TWRs to MMC in

July 1983, and a three-vessel op- tion was exercised in October. The 120-foot, 2,000-bhp steel vessel, a totally new design developed by

MMC, is capable of staying on sta- tion for one week recovering spent missiles and torpedoes fired dur- ing weapons system tests on Na- val combatant submarines and surface ships.

In February this year, Mari- nette was awarded a contract by

NAVSEA for the construction of twenty-eight 50-foot, steel-hull workboats, with an option for 24 additional vessels. Delivery of the workboats to both the East and

West Coasts will be two per month starting later this year. In pre- vious years, MMC has been awarded contracts by the Navy for more than 50 of this type craft.

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NATIONAL STEEL

Navy work at National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NAS-

SCO) in San Diego is progressing on schedule toward completion of two major contracts: the conver- sion of three Waterman RO/RO vessels into T-AKX Maritime

Prepositioning Ships to be time- chartered to the Military Sealift

Command; and the conversion of three SL-7 former Sea-Land con- tainerships to T-AKR Rapid De- ployment Ships, also for the MSC.

Conversion of the RO/RO ships has involved the construction of 126-foot midbodies to provide ad- ditional cargo capacity. The over- all length of the converted ships will be 821 feet. The original deck- houses are being modified to in-

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