Page 23: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (October 2017)

Looking ahead, please discuss the ? eet. You mentioned it brie? y, but can projection that indicates the U.S. Coast where the excitement is … one is great,

SCA Agenda. you update our readers on the status? Guard will need to expand its icebreak- six would be better. We should build six.

If you are sitting on that navy side of All we know is the DHS mission ‘need er capacity potentially to a ? eet of six Russia is ramping up its icebreaker ? eet, things, it is essential that we end Se- statement for the icebreaker which reads: icebreakers, three heavy and three me- and we really don’t have an icebreaker questration, which is something we have “there is current requirement and future dium.” I read that to you because that’s ? eet right now. been advocating since day one. Once that happens, then we have to get creative on building up this Navy ? eet. We have to be serious about alternative funding ap- proaches to shipbuilding. We have to have multi-buy, multi-block contracts to spread out the cost of these vessels. This

Twifex TLB Systems is going to require a creative acquisition strategy.

On the commercial side, number one is

Tailored Solutions to Meet all of Your the promotion and protection of the Jones

Act. The commercial shipbuilding sector

Propulsion Shaft Requirements in the U.S. really doesn’t ask for much.

The Jones Act is critical to maintaining this industrial base (and it’s not just the shipyards, as) we (SCA) have more than • Individual or multiple 100 partner members, members that are functions fully integrated to critical to the shipbuilding supply chain.

The Jones Act is the number one prior- suit your ‘Turning, Locking ity to maintain that industrial base. We or Braking’ requirements.

continue to look at our workforce devel- opment too, which is arguably our single • Full range of pneumatic or biggest challenge. hydraulic brake calipers

We need a strong workforce to build both naval and commercial order books. to suit a wide range of

For example, to ramp up to the 355 ship braking specifications.

navy will require another 20,000 direct employees to carry out the work, and • Optional controls package that doesn’t include another 30,000 be- to fulfill actuation and ing employed throughout the entire sup- ply chain and industrial base.

customer specific automation requirements.

With the new Administration came new hope for the industrial base. How has that panned out so far?

When the Trump Administration came in with the heavy focus on “Buy Amer- ica” and a focus on shipbuilding, from this Administration there have been a lot of positive signals. Now we need to see them follow through on those positive signals; we need to see the execution of the policy.

Bottom line, is the much-discussed ‘355-ship’ navy going to be a reality?

I would say that the Administration’s 2018 budget is not there yet. With the

Visit Booth #317 at the New Orleans, LA initial budget proposal we are not see-

International WorkBoat Show Nov. 29-Dec. 1 ing all of the trends that we would like to see, but it is moving in the right di- rection. As I said before, we really need to see multi-ship orders, because that is when the shipyards can really plan for- ward and make the investments neces- sary to ramp up.

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Twiflex TLB video

Another big project is the rebuilding of the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker www.marinelink.com 23

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