Page 25: of Marine News Magazine (September 2025)

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Feature

Ship Repair hen the TSHD Stuyvesant suffered an engine room ? re on November 2, 2024, the scale of the damage raised immediate

W concerns about whether the vessel could be returned to service quickly, or at all. Owned and oper- ated by The Dutra Group, Stuyvesant is a key asset in the

U.S. dredging ? eet. Losing her for an extended period would have left a signi? cant gap in capacity. Less than eight months later, on June 20, 2025, the dredge completed sea trials and rejoined the ? eet. The rapid turnaround was the result of an intense, collaborative restoration effort led by McCullough

Engineering Services (MES), working alongside Dutra, BAE

Systems Jacksonville and a network of subcontractors.

A Fire, Then a Call

The ? re, traced to a mechanical issue, ripped through the “This job was ? ve, ten, maybe ? fteen engine room and machinery control room (MCR), destroy- times the scale of our typical project,” ing the main switchboard, motor controllers, monitoring he says. “We had to draw resources systems, and melting thousands of feet of cabling. “Once

Dutra’s port engineer and ? eet manager saw the extent of from both our government and the damage, they made the ? rst call to Shane McCullough commercial teams and supplement [the founder of MES]” recalls Devin Smith, Vice President with trusted subcontractors. It was of Commercial Programs, MES. “They knew this wasn’t all hands on deck.” something they could piece back together on their own.

They needed us on board.” – Devin Smith, VP of

For MES, a 28-person ? rm based in the U.S. with both government and commercial contracts, the challenge was

Commercial Programs, daunting but aligned with its core strengths. The company

McCullough Engineering (MES) was tasked not with a narrow technical scope, but with a broad mandate: “get the Stuyvesant safely and reliably back to work.”

Watch the full interview with

Scope of the Damage and Scale of the Project

Devin Smith @

Founded in 1999, MES has built a reputation for pro- viding full lifecycle support for ship automation, power, and control systems. But as Smith notes, the Stuyvesant • Redesign of the dredge generator AVR system and project was a different order of magnitude. motor control centers.

“This job was ? ve, ten, maybe ? fteen times the scale of • Relocation of variable frequency drives (VFDs) our typical project,” he says. “We had to draw resources from for safer operation.

both our government and commercial teams and supple- • Removal, replacement, and testing of damaged ment with trusted subcontractors. It was all hands on deck.” cabling—estimated at more than 17.5 miles of cable.

Among the milestones achieved were: • Commissioning of the electric plant, main engines, • Installation of a new ABS/USCG-certi? ed and machinery control system.

switchboard and main engine control system. • Installation of a new ? re detection system to • Complete rebuild of the MCR and control consoles. prevent history from repeating itself.

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