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August 2011www.marinelink.com 56partner Michael Grandonico leased ? and eventually bought ? an existing shipbuilding and repair facility on the St. Johns River (mile marker 31), a facility which was renamed St. Johns Ship Building and today stands as one of the more progressive and technologically ca- pable small shipyards on the U.S. East Coast. Visitors to St. Johns Ship Building ? a facility which lies on 98 acres in a picturesque locale ? are most immediatelystruck by how neat and orderly the facility is run and kept, a tribute to general manager and 30-year ship- building veteran Bobby Barfield, said Ganoe. In the four short years that the management team has been involved with the yard, he has helped to take what was a vacant facility and through planning and investment created a diverse and capable shipbuilding and repair facility. In- vestment in the yard has been steady, boosted last year by $2.4m in U.S. federal government ?stimulus? fund- ing. The company operates several state-of-the-art ma- chines including two CNC plasma cutting machines, brake press, plate sheer, and will soon welcome the ad- dition of a family of steel processing equipment, in- cluding a new Wheelabrator plate system, as well as the machinery to shape and cut steel to most any specifica- tion, a move which St. Johns envisions as fulfilling the material processing needs for ship building as well as other industry customers.Bollinger Shipyards, Inc.is a privately owned builder that owns and operates 12 shipyards located between New Orleans and Houston with direct access to the Gulf of Mexico, Mississippi River and Intracoastal Waterway. Bollinger is active on the commercial workboat, off- shore oil and gas and government markets, and is the largest vessel repair/conversion company in the Gulf of Mexico region with a total of 31 dry-docks in Louisiana and Texas. As the Gulf of Mexico Oil offshore business starts to back to life ? fueled by a flurry of rig permits this spring,Bollinger?s ubiquitous leader, Donald ?Boysie? Bollinger, remains cautiously optimistic. ?These dis- coveries show that if they let us drill, we can do it safely and find oil and gas. But it will take much more activity than a successful well to turn this industry around.? One major concern, he said, is that ?more and more drillingequipment is leaving the Gulf for other areas of the world.? While Bollinger waits for the return of the GOM oil patch business, it has a variety of additional projects to keep its yards active. Earlier this year, Bollinger launched the first in class United States Coast Guard?s "Sentinel? Fast Response Cutter (FRC), Bernard C. Webber from its Lockport facility. The Sentinel class cutter is 154 feet long and is capable of speeds in excess of 28 knots. The vessels will be armed with one stabi- lized remotely-operated 25mm chain gun and four crew- served .50-caliber machine guns. The cutters will be able to operate independently for five days at sea, ac- commodating a crew of 23 members. A state-of-the- market command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) system will be fully interoperable with other CoastGuard assets as well as those of the Department of De-fense and the Department of Homeland Security. The cutters will also have a 40 knot rigid inflatable boat, RIB, which can be rapidly deployed using an innovative stern launching system that was first presented to the Coast Guard by Bollinger aboard the 87 foot MarineProtector Class cutters. The Sentinel FRC design is based on the Damen StanPatrol 4708 patrol boat. Gulf Copper is another GOM-region company that has continued to expand its capabilities over the last few years, with a focus on increasing efficiencies to world class level, moves which include bringing into service another dry dock. In addition to acquiring new facilities and purchasing new fabrication equipment, Gulf Cop- per has expanded several divisions. For example, Gulf Copper?s Global Services division sends experienced professionals around the world to complete projects, performing the same tasks that would be completed pier- side at one of its full-service locations when its clientsare unable to come to them. Gulf Copper?s Environ- mental division brings together a group of qualified ex- perts to accommodate an array of environmental services. Gulf Copper?s Mobile Rapid Response (MRR) teams have the ability to be onsite in the event of an emergency, and with our experienced support staff, are able to pre-plan with our clients? to a successful project completion. Further, the MRR teams are qualified and use state-of-the-art equipment, allowing Gulf Copper to take on almost any environmental service needed. Fi- nally, all personnel are HAZWOPER certified with an exceptional safety rating, specializing in Industrial, Ma- rine, Onshore, and Offshore environmental require- ments.FEATURE THE SHIPYARD EDITION (U.S. Yards Seek, Create New Opportunities Continued from page 39)VT Halter: Diversified CapabilityPascagoula, Miss.-based VT Halteris a traditionalpower in the GOM region, equally adept at building ships and boats for government and commercial cus- tomers. Last month the company announced a signif- icant milestone with the delivery of the final in a series of ten 185,000-barrel articulated tug barge (ATB) units built for Crowley subsidiary, Vessel Management Services . Since construction of thefirst unit in 2005, all ten 185,000-barrel barges have been built at VT Halter Marine?s Pascagoula Opera- tions while the 9,700-hp tugs were built at its Moss Point Marine Operations. Barge 650-10, like its sister vessels (650-1 thru 650-9), is certified by ABS Clas- sification Society to comply with the IMO?s Green Passport program. Additionally, 650-10 has a Crude Oil Washing (COW) system whereby oil tanks are cleaned out with crude oil, instead of water. The COW system is mandatory on new tankers under the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollu- tion by Ships (the MARPOL Convention). All of Crowley?s ATBs are built under the ABS SafeHull program for environmental protection. Earlier in the spring, VT Halter won a contract from Bouchard Transportation to build a 112-ft. ATB Offshore Tug. This tug will be similar to others built for Bouchard in previous years by Halter Marine, measuring 112 x 35 x 17 ft. The 4,000-hp tug will be classed by ABS as +A1 Towing Vessel, Dual Mode, and it will be equipped with an Intercon Coupler System. Con-struction of the vessel begins in June 2011 at VT Hal- ter Marine?s Moss Point Marine facility in Escatawpa, Miss., with delivery expected in September 2012. On the government side, VT Halter has made a habit of building some of the most technically so- phisticated non-military vessels, the T-AGS oceano- graphic vessels. At the beginning of 2011, VT Halter held a keel laying ceremony for T-AGS 66 USNS Maury. In late 2009, VT Halter Marine was awarded a contract of approximately $87m to build an enhanced version of the T-AGS 60 Class oceanographic survey ship for the U.S. Navy. De- livery of the vessel is expected in July 2013. T-AGS 60 Class ships are designed and constructed to pro-vide multi-purpose oceanographic capabilities fortypical missions such as: oceanographic sampling anddata collection of surface, midwater and ocean floor parameters; launching, recovering, and towing scien- tific packages, both tethered and autonomous, in- cluding handling, monitoring, and servicing remotelyoperated vehicles (ROVs); shipboard oceanographic data processing and sample analysis; and precise nav- igation, track line maneuvering, and station keeping to support deep ocean and coastal surveys. VT Halter Marine is the leading designer and builder of spe- cialized oceanographic ships for the U.S. Navy and has experience in building the previous six ships of the T-AGS 60 Class; T-AGOS 13 through T-AGOS 18 ocean surveillance ships; a T-AGOS 23 Class SWATH ocean surveillance ship, T-AGS 51 and T- AGS 52 hydrographic survey ships; oceanographic survey ships AGOR 23, 24 and 25; NOAA AGOR Ronald H. Brown; and four fisheries survey vessels (FSVs) for NOAA. Horizon Shipbuilding, Inc., has kept busy building towboats for commercial and government customers, and is investing in upgrading it facilities. MR Aug. 11 # 7 (50-56):MR Template 8/8/2011 4:03 PM Page 56