Marine Log - March 2008 - (Page 4)

Nick Blenkey Senior Editorial Consultant Second Thoughts The crane drain and MARS he mighty 1,200-ton gantry crane that once spanned the building dock of what was the Quincy Shipbuilding Division of General Dynamics has been sold to Daewoo Mangalia in Romania. It’s been a long time since any ships were built at the Quincy yard. It was started, as the Fore River Engine Co., in 1884 by Alexander Graham Bell’s assistant Thomas Augustus Watson, who is better remembered in history as the first person to ever receive a telephone call (“Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you!”). It closed its doors in 1986. That’s more than 20 years ago, but the removal of the crane is still a painful reminder of what a showcase yard it was in its day. Just to put things in perspective, Japan has only in the past month put into operation a 1,200-ton goliath crane. It has been installed at the Koyagi Plant of the Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works in Nagasaki Prefecture. It is 95.5 meters in height and 185 meters in width. The introduction of the new crane and expansion of some other facilities, will increase the shipbuilding capacity of the Koyagi Plant from the current five LNG carriers annually to seven. Of course, there’s been some progress in crane technology since the Quincy crane was installed back in the 1970’s. One outstanding feature of the new Mitsubishi crane is its significant wind resistance despite its reduced weight. As the Koyagi Plant is located in an area prone to high winds, the crane has T an aerodynamic design, based on extensive wind tunnel testing, to fend off strong winds. The crane is designed to withstand gusts of up to 80 meters/second, far stronger than the 55 m/s that goliath cranes are normally designed to take. While shipbuilding nostalgia buffs may mourn the departure of the Quincy crane, it’s the nature of the shipbuilding industry for highly capable, well equipped yards to close—usually at a time when yard managers think they’ve got the shipbuilding productivity thing nailed. The thing is, you can’t build ships if you don’t get orders—and when times are lean the only yards that get orders are those with some kind of protection from international competition or some sort of subsidy. Right now, shipbuilding is in the midst of an unprecedented boom. Building spaces are tight, so some owners will pay a premium for early delivery and that has saved some yards that were teetering from extinction. One yard for which the boom came too late was Britain’s Swan Hunter. All of its shipbuilding equipment has been bought by India’s Bharati Shipyard to construct a green field modern shipyard at Usgaon near the Dabhol port in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra on India’s east coast. The yard will have the capacity to build vessels up to 100,000 dwt and will be fully operational in the next two years. It will make use of the majority of the shipyard machinery and equipment that Bharati purchased from Swan Hunter Shipyard—including the Swan Hunter floating drydock. An order that could conceivably have saved Swan Hunter will soon be placed by Britain’s Ministry of Defence. It recently put out a Pre-Qualifying Questionnaire (PQQ) relating to the design and build of up to six Fleet Tankers for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. The ships are the first part of the U.K.’s planned Military Afloat Reach and Sustainability (MARS) program. Concept material from the Ministry of Defence shows a ship that is essentially a tanker forward of an accommodation deckhouse with a very untankerlike flight deck aft. There is also a requirement to provide for astern refueling. The speed requirements of a fleet auxiliary will also likely dictate a longer, finer hullform than that of a commercial tanker. Still, the British Government has determined that the ships will be commercial rather than military (though one concept drawing shows a fleet tanker equipped with a Phalanx Close In Weapon system). The commercial designation means the ships can be bid internationally. Enter Britain’s BAE Systems. It will partner with BMT Defence Services Ltd and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., Ltd. (DSME) to bid for the contract. It intends to build the ships in Korea. Is there a lesson here for American shipbuilders? Sure. It is that they should love and cherish their Washington lobbyists! nblenkey@sbpub.com 4 MARINE LOG MARCH 2008 www.marinelog.com http://www.marinelog.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Marine Log - March 2008

Marine Log - March 2008 Contents Editorial Second Thoughts Update Inside Washington Navy's Toughest Battle Building Future Fleet Less Fuel, Lower Emissions A New Generation of Mariners Training for the Future LNG Security: Resources Needed Models of Perfection Tech News Newsmakers Contracts Events Infodirect Website Directory ML Marketplace Opinion

Marine Log - March 2008

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