Page 36: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (December 1986)

$240-Million Modernization

Program Announced For

Portsmouth Navy Shipyard

Members of the Maine and New

Hampshire Congressional delega- tions have announced a $240 million program to modernize Portsmouth

Navy Shipyard. Some 600 em- ployees were laid off or retired from the yard earlier this year as compe- tition among Navy-owned shipyards heated up.

The project will consist of con- verting one of these existing dry- docks to a covered facility. This will allow yard personnel to work out of the weather during winter months, and by one estimate could shave some $36 million from the $120 mil- lion cost of overhauling a nuclear submarine.

The yard management has been streamlined to reduce cost of opera- tions. This included a reduction of personnel from 8,200 to 7,600 and has resulted in a workload projected to keep all those employed through 1988, a spokesman for the yard said.

Sparrows Point Eligible

For All Navy Contracts

Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows

Point shipbuilding yard, which has received two repair contracts under a limited expansion of the Navy's homeport rule, will be eligible for all

Navy contracts.

Representative Helen Delich

Bentley, who played a pivotal role in getting the Reagan Administra- tion to help the ailing shipyard, announced the decision to allow

Sparrows Point to bid on all Navy repair contracts.

In his initial decision to include

Baltimore within Norfolk's home- port radius, Navy Secretary John

Lehman intended that Sparrows

Point be eligible for all Navy work.

However, in the promulgating the change in policy, Navy brass limited the yard's role to only fixed-price contracts.

Bethlehem officials complained to Representative Bentley that the yard had been excluded from the

Navy's list of prospective bidders on

Phased Maintenance Agreements.

David Watson, general manager at the Sparrows Point yard, said because of this omission Bethlehem did not receive bid packages for 11 ships.

NCEL Develops

New Multi-Function Tool

For Naval Diver Use

The first seawater hydraulic mul- ti-function tool system ever devel- oped for Navy divers has been ap- proved for Navy use by the Naval

Sea Systems Command (NAV-

SEA).

The acceptance marks the culmi- nation of a major 10-year research and development effort by the Nav- al Civil Engineering Laboratory (NCEL), Port Hueneme, Calif.

NCEL project engineer Bruce

Farber said the system consists of several subsystems, including (1) a self-contained power supply, (2) portable band saw, (3) rotary disc grinder, (4) rotary impact wrench/ drill, and (5) rock drill. Three sys- tems will be delivered to the Navy

Underwater Construction teams early next year.

A revolutionary 3- by 3- by 21/2- inch underwater hydraulic motor, that uses seawater instead of oil as the working fluid, was the first com- ponent of the system to be develop- ed. Mr. Farber said seawater hy- draulics offer many advantages over oil, such as no environmental pollu- tion, dramatic reduction of tool maintenance requirements, and elimination of fire hazards and slip- pery oil on decks.

Perhaps the biggest advantages are enhanced equipment capabili- ties. There is no need for a return hose and less pump power is re- quired. NCEL's research divers have found that reduced back pres- sure gives them the ability to work at greater depths. They also learned that the more flexible single-hose system was easier to handle. $1-Million Navy Contract

To Airflow Company

For Dockside A/C Units

A $1,028,666 contract was recent- ly awarded to the Frederick, Md.- based Airflow Company by the

Navy Regional Contracting Center.

The contract, awarded to Airflow's

IMP AC Division, calls for the man- ufacture and delivery of eleven 75- ton air conditioning units. Airflow

Company's air conditioners will pro- vide dockside environmental con- trol for construction and mainte- nance personnel working inside sub- marines.

The air conditioner is a single pass, portable, eight-stage unload- ing, self-contained unit with dual independent refrigerant circuits and six-stage electric heat. It provides automatic variable capacity control which requires only initial tempera- ture and mode selection by an oper- ator. The unit is one of Airflow

Company's largest and has a cooling capacity of 900,000 btu/hr total.

Airflow Company provides a full line of custom-designed military and commercial data center climate control equipment. The IMPAC Di- vision designs and produces envi- ronmental control equipment capa- ble of withstanding extreme condi- tions. IMPAC equipment is built to customer specifications.

For free literature detailing Air- flow air conditioning units and cli- mate control equipment,

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New Jam-Proof High-Speed

Data Link Sought By Navy

According to service officials, the

Navy hopes the benefits of competi- tion will make it feasible to finally link warships with a jam-proof high- speed data system.

The Navy is laying plans to open to competition its sophisticated

AN/WSC-6 communications sys- tem. Plans call for holding the com- petition in 1987 for a fiscal-year 1988 contract to outfit the Navy's 15 aircraft carriers with the system, said Rear Adm. Stuart F. Piatt, the Navy's Competition Advocate

General.

The WSC-6 system costs about $2.5 million each. For the carrier program, the Navy has set aside about $50 million to pay for acquisi- tion and spares. Officials hope the costs will come down with competi- tion. If costs come down enough, the

Navy would like to put the system on other warships, including battle- ships, amphibious assault ships and

Aegis cruisers.

The system has eluded competi- tion thus far simply because there is no one prime contractor. Parts of the system are bought from Ray- theon Co., Magnavox Government and Industrial Electronics Division,

E-Systems Inc., Varian Associates

Inc. and Rockwell International

Corp. The Navy hands the compo- nents to a separate contractor that integrates them into a working data link. <§dliyid®lfS

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