Assembly Line Efficiency
Raymond Viguerie and, more recently his son Peter, have been building pushboats at a yard on a bayou just off the Itntacoastal Waterway that skirts the Gulf of Mexico. Their Intracoastal Ironworks sits between the bayou and the Bourg-LaRoxe Highway has recently expanded into the neighboring property. In the past they have built a variety of boats, but in recent years focused their efforts on a standard 72- by 30- by 10-foot push boat with two steering and four flanking rudders.
Viguerie: Passing Quality from Father to Son
These days, Raymond is still at his Intracoastal Iron Works yard full time, but his son Peter is doing a lot of the day-to-day management. With three boats under construction in March there was plenty to keep them both busy. The yard has recently added a new 165-ton ladder boom crane and two 35 ton cherry pickers. Business is good. One of the new boats nearing completion in mid-March was the Boo Sonier for LeBeouf Brothers Towing. This will be the eleventh boat built at Intracoastal for the LeBeouf fleet.
Modular Construction at Intracoastal Marine
Louisiana shipyards are famous for launching fine boats from some pretty basic facilities. Raymond Viguerie's Intracoastal Marine is a good example. His yard near Bourg Louisiana doesn?t need fancy building sheds. It relies on good people like yard manager Joey Portier to keep the several boats building at any given time moving along to schedule. An important part of keeping to the schedule is the use of modular construction. While working with a small crew, the yard has been able to build the M/V Alexandra Danos with efficiency and a minimum of time spent climbing in and out of the hull. The 140 by 34-foot mini-supply vessel was fabricated in three modules. One module was for the raised foc?sle and superstructure, another for the forward hull and the third for the aft hull.
Launch Day in Bourg, La.
Joey Portier, yard manager at Intercoastal Iron Works, recently sent this photo of the splashy launch that they had for Lebeouf Brothers Towing's latest push boat. As in others built to the Frank Basile design, this 72 x 32-ft. push boat is powered by twin Cummins KTA38 M1 main engines rated at 1,000 hp each. At Intracoastal Ironworks Joey Portier manages the yard for owner Raymond Viguerie. The yard delivered one of the Basile-designed 72-footers, the Katie Gronsulin, to Lebeouf Brothers Towing in the fall of 2006. They launched this one in early May and will deliver shortly. In line behind the Richard Gonsoulin II are orders for at least one more for Lebeouf and then two for Higman Marine.
