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SHIPBUILDING schedules and regulatory requirements. Many of these men and hindsight were simply the gold standard. Testing was immedi- women are still to this day stranded on those ships or shipyards ate. PPE requirements were upgraded and in most photographs due to the inability of ports, terminals, cities, states, and coun- taken during the initial strike of the virus, our supervision staff tries to develop a safe way for them to travel home and arrange looked like they were preparing for brain surgery rather than their reliefs or shift change. This is a serious problem that still structural block inspections. exists today as transportation and shipping continues to be a It may sound trivial until you understand that loosing one or forgotten essential business and service. more of that supervision team resulted in the inability to ? y

That essential service includes shipbuilding and make no new staff into the project. Both a quarantine period and the fact mistake the COVID virus struck hard at the builders and repair that travel was not allowed into the country was the “Sword of yards worldwide. Within our Amtech and First Harvest Naviga- Damacles” that hung over our heads and played with possible tion network of companies, we were midstream in the construc- major delays in the project. As we moved closer to delivery tion of six chemical carriers in our Hyundai South Korea of? ce, periods positioning both a forward joining sea trial crew, manu- a 750-ft. self discharging bulk carrier barge for VTB at Bay facturers representatives and the actual crew scheduled to take

Shipbuilding in the Great Lakes and a major ATB tug re? t and the vessel to sea at delivery were also subjected to the same modi? cation at Don Jon in Erie, Pennsylvania. Add to those dif? culties. The costs of the quarantines and the PPE are easily responsibilities four of our MR 50,000 deadweight tankers due substantiated for health & safety reasons. The business costs for special survey and drydocking in the ? rst and second quar- are not. The ? rst three vessels have been delivered on time and ter of 2020 and six more of our 25,000 deadweight chemical the following hulls are well underway to meeting their sched- carriers due in 2021. COVID 19 has surrounded us for over six uled delivery dates. Much like the use of steroids in profes- months. It has been a formidable enemy. sional sports, this project will have an asterisk placed next to it

The ? rst project to experience the sting of the COVID virus – “built and delivered under Global Pandemic”. We are proud was our six vessels under construction at Hyundai Mipo Dock- to be recognized as completing “? rst of” projects but this is yard in Ulsan, South Korea. That said the reaction and proce- pushing it. Our staff worked long hard hours to solve many new dures put in place by the Korean government and Hyundai in problems including virtual sea trials as our U.S. staff could not www.marinelink.com 25

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