Page 60: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2012)

60Maritime Reporter & Engineering News Shipyards Weather the Storm ( again)Whether they are large or small, domestic or foreign, many shipyards have hauntingly familiar tales. They work in a notoriously cyclical markets which can wreak havoc on attracting and retaining top talent; they are capital in- tensive, demanding steady investment to stay safe, compliant and efficient, no matter the health of a particular year?s balance sheet. Through it all, though, you arguably will not find a more resilient or resourceful brand of business. Following are some of their stories. St. Johns Shipbuilding is a young and growing operation breathing new life into an old yard. Five years ago Steve Ganoe and partner Michael Grandonico pur- chased a closed, 98-acre facility on Florida?s St. Johns River and have since renewed its infrastructure and doubled its tonnage capacity. St. Johns has a number of successful deliveries under its belt now, including tugs, barges and offshore support vessels for U.S. and foreign flags. The yard is pushing forward with still more improvements allowing it to take on a wide variety of projects. St. Johns recently delivered the OSV Sea Strength for work in the Caribbean and is nearly ready to deliver its first split-hull scow barge. St. Johns Shipbuilding is half-way through a five-year infrastructure im- provement project aimed at more than doubling its tonnage capacity. The yard sits on 98 acres along the St. Johns River in Palatka, Fla., approximately 68 miles southwest of Jacksonville. When Ganoe and Grandonico purchased the yard it hadbeen mostly empty for several years. Since then, the owners and managers have been transforming it, updating and renewing 30-year-old facilities to support multiple new build and repair projects. In the last year St. Johns has been busy creating more jigs, or construction areasfor vessel hulls, and installing more bulk- head along the 2,400 ft. of water frontage. A second rail launch system was completed to move vessels between land and water. St. Johns is also in the process of increasing its three phase am-perage and anticipates finishing the elec- trical power source expansion this winter. The shipyard?s goal is to build ca- pacity for simultaneous construction of four to five vessels with room for dry docking and repair of additional ves- sels. With a footprint as large as St. Johns? there is plenty of room for this type of expansion and the founding part- ners believes the market is ready for more U.S. shipbuilding capacity. ?We?re encouraged by the interest in new construction right now,? said Ganoe. ?There are a lot of different types of proj- ects out there.? This includes barges, ex- cursion vessels, cargo vessels and offshore support vessels. While Ganoe and Grandonico see the offshore support vessel market as the most active, St. Johns is focused on being competitive in the overall market. Besides its renewed infrastructure, Ganoe counts the experience of its yard supervisors and its location as St. Johns?biggest advantages. Most of its supervi- sors have 20 or more years of shipyard experience. In addition, Ganoe said, ?We?re on the East Coast with great ac- cess to New England as well as the Caribbean, but not far enough from the Gulf to be cost prohibitive.? Demonstrating the yard?s ability to take on a wide range of projects, St. Johns isbuilding its first split-hull scow barge. Ganoe described this project as techni-cally challenging because the vessel weighs more than 1,200 tons and ?repre-sents a great deal of precision work in- cluding steel cutting and articulatingpieces together.? Irving Shipbuilding: Mammoth $25b Canadian Navy Contract Late last year Irving Shipbuilding was awarded the lion?s share of a historic Canadian Navy shipbuilding contract, a deal worth approximately $25b which has set in motion the future transforma- tion of a historic operation for the cominggeneration. ?The Irving Shipbuilding team is honored to have been chosen by Canada to build the Navy?s new combat vessel fleet and we look forward to con- tinued successful negotiations with the federal government,? said Steve Durrell, President, Irving Shipbuilding. ?Irving Shipbuilding has a proven record of suc- cessfully delivering 80% of Canada?s current combat vessel fleet, including serving as prime Contractor for Canada?s largest shipbuilding Major Crown Proj- ect, the Canadian Patrol Frigate (CPF) program. In priming the CPF program inthe late 1980s and early 1990s, our teammet all contract requirements as well asdelivered to Canada additional benefits such as production innovations, technol- ogy transfers, industrial benefits and effi- ciency improvements.? Today Irving Shipbuilding employs ap- proximately 1,300 experienced ship- builders, who are currently working on a number of key Canadian shipbuilding programs, which include Mid-Life Refits on seven of the RCN?s patrol frigates as part of the Frigate Life Extension Pro- gram, as well as seven of nine high-tech St. Johns Shipbuildingemployee at work onsplit-hull scow. Jim Irving, CEO Irving Shipbuilding and SteveDurrell, President Irving Shipbuilding..MR#8 (58-65):MR Template 8/9/2012 10:49 AM Page 60