Page 10: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (March 1991)

BOATS & BARGES ! ;

The first oilfield boat to be built by SMI as the oilfield market revives will be a sister ship to

Gilbert Cheramie Boats' M/V Erika Lynn, shown above, which was the last oilfield boat built by SMI after the market downturn.

Service Marine To Build 145-Foot Utility Boat

For Gilbert Cheramie Boats

Gilbert Cheramie, president of

Gilbert Cheramie Boats, Inc., and

T.R. Hensley, president of Service

Marine Industries, Inc. (SMI), re- cently signed a contract for the con- struction of a 145-foot by 36-foot by 11-foot 6-inch utility boat. The new vessel will be a sister ship to the Eri- ka Lynn, the last oilfield boat built by SMI after the downturn in the oilfield market. Delivery is sched- uled for early September 1991.

The new boat has a capacity for 1,192 barrels of liquid mud, 113,552 gallons of fresh water, 31,466 gallons of fuel oil, 380 long tons of dock car- go on 2,790 square feet of deck space, and quarters for 18 persons.

Mr. Cheramie and his son, (Brian, operate one of the largest utility boat fleets in the Gulf of

Mexico. Started in 1955, the compa- ny's fleet has grown to 20 boats, the last two of which were built by

SMI.

Service Marine Industries is a full service shipyard in Amelia, La. For the past five years the company has

Sperry Gyrocompass

System Receives

NMEA Product Award

Sperry Marine was honored at the annual banquet of the National Ma- rine Electronics Association (NMEA) when the association pre- sented its 1990 Products Award to the Sperry Marine gyrocompass sys- tem.

The NMEA jury of industry sales and technical personnel bestows the honor annually on marine electronic products of outstanding perform- ance and reliability. The Sperry

Marine gyrocompass has received the NMEA award every year since the award was instituted.

Sperry Marine manufactures a complete line of marine gyrocom- passes including the MK-37 for large vessels, and the SR-50, SR-

March, 1991 been building large U.S. Coast

Guard-approved dinner/excursion boats, having recently launched an 800-passenger, 175-foot dinner/ex- cursion boat, the M/V Odyssey.

This sleek, megayacht-style boat, owned by Odyssey Cruises, will start operation from Navy Pier in Chica- go next month.

In announcing the new contract,

Mr. Hensley said that SMI is re- ceiving other inquiries for oilfield boats and that he expects to start another oilfield supply boat in the near future. SMI is currently mar- keting a new 220-foot by 45-foot by 18-foot OSV that has been designed for handling cargo to deepwater drilling rigs and production plat- forms. Mr. Hensley added that

SMI would continue to market and build the shallow-draft passenger vessels in addition to oilfield boats.

For free literature on the facilities and capabilities of Service Marine

Industries,

Circle 34 on Reader Service Card 100, SR-120/130, and SR-220 for vessels requiring smaller gyros.

In other company news, a subsid- iary of Sperry Marine Inc., Sperry

Marine Ltd. of Wokingham, U.K., was recently awarded a contract by the Royal Navy of Oman to expand and modernize the existing vessel traffic system which Sperry Marine installed in the Strait of Hormuz in 1982. The multimillion-dollar up- grade was ordered by the Royal

Navy of Oman to extend coverage over a greater area of the Strait.

Sperry Marine Inc., a leading de- veloper and manufacturer of marine navigation, control and communica- tion equipment, is a subsidiary of

Newport News Shipbuilding, a Ten- neco company.

For further information and free literature from Sperry Marine,

Circle 31 on Reader Service Card

Three Carriers Begin Full

Container Service Between

Singapore And Australia

Full container service between

Singapore and Australia has been established by three carriers, Nip- pon Yusen Kaisha of Japan, Lloyd

Trestino di Navigazione SpA of Ita- ly, and Regional Container Lines

Ltd. of Thailand.

The three lines will share space on two vessels being utilized in the new service, known as the Australia

South Asia service, which offers a direct shuttle between Sydney and

Melbourne and Singapore at 15-day frequencies.

The lines said that southbound transit time will be 12 days to Syd- ney and 15 days to Melbourne. Sail- ings from Sydney to Singapore will take 14 days; voyages from Mel- bourne will take 11 days.

I

NOTHING

WORKS

BETTER

THAN

A

PROPELLER

MADE

TO

ORDER

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When you need a propeller that works just for you, call for a Bird-Johnson distributor location near you. ** il BIRD-JOHNSON COMPANY

P.O. Box 286 • Pinto Island • Mobile ft AL36601 • 8002377353 • 2056907841

Walpole, MA • Pascagoula, MS • Seattle, WA An Axel Johnson Inc. Company

Circle 321 on Reader Service Card 11