Robert Stevens News

GoM shipyards are meeting the demand for right-sized, multi-mission boats. In the last decade, Gulf Coast shipyards have watched demand for multi-mission vessels grow from foreign governments and U.S. authorities. In particular, local counties and municipalities – pinched by shrinking budgets and expanding mission sets – began the march to leverage a single hull for more than one task. And, since these boats can serve military or civilian needs, the need for boatbuilders to quickly adapt a standard hull form to a particular requirement became a highly desired skill set.

Export hulls – through the FMS Program, as well as Direct Sales – are a key piece of the business model. Even as the crash in energy prices feeds the oversupply of offshore support vessels – a key staple of U.S. boatbuilding diets – and the dwindling backlogs of some so-called ‘second tier’ yards,  a number of U.S. boat builders are still seeing robust demand for security vessels. Separately, tightening federal, state, municipal and overseas budgets are being trumped by the increased need for security craft that can perform more than one function.

Tampa Yacht Manufacturing LLC offers ‘Battle Ready’ products with superior strength, high performance and extended life cycle. Each of TYM’s vessels is designed and engineered to be mission specific. Included in its portfolio are craft in the 9 to 11 meter length, engineered to provide economical and highly effective harbor and near shore defense and law enforcement solutions. TYM also offers several mid-size craft from 12 to 15 meters, designed to be aggressive, robust high performance craft engineered for interception, interdiction and take-down of high speed craft.

Many variables drive the design decisions for High Speed Craft and RHIBS. Commercial off the Shelf Solutions often tie all of these together. The world is changing fast and nowhere is this truer than in the fast boat sector. When selecting a new boat, the questions used to be relatively simple: how long, how many engines, what fuel type and how fast? Military and professional maritime organizations have been driving the evolution of extreme fast craft for over 30 years. Naval architects…

Building patrol boats is big business, especially for foreign defense needs. U.S. yards compete on a global stage in the all-important maritime security workboat arena. Patrol boats have continued to enhance bottom lines at many U.S. vessel builders this year through sales that are usually government directed or assisted. Budget cuts are a concern, but the sector’s federal funding remains high. Patrol boats are sold to other nations under the U.S. Foreign Military Sales or FMS program, authorized by the Arms Export Control Act to provide defense items.

U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen met last week with chief executive officers from Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) and Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC) to discuss his agency's $24b modernization program, which has struggled with rising costs and technical difficulties. Lockheed Martin CEO Robert Stevens and Northrop Grumman CEO Ron Sugar met with Allen to talk about the Deepwater program's new management plan, the Coast Guard said. The Deepwater program is a 25-year effort to replace a wide variety of aging ships and aircraft. Costs have ballooned from the original $17b estimate, and critics have said the program's shipbuilding troubles show that the Coast Guard isn't equipped to manage such a big project.

Managers of Jamaica's delayed Port Royal Development Project expect to begin construction by year-end on a cruise ship pier central to the restoration of the one-time "wickedest city on earth." The Caribbean port earned the dubious distinction in the 17th century, when buccaneer Henry Morgan ruled the waves and made Port Royal his base. The infamy did not last long, as much of Port Royal disappeared under the sea in a massive earthquake in 1692. Another earthquake in 1907 did further damage, leaving only a small village at the end of Jamaica's Palisadoes Peninsular, just east of the capital Kingston. Originally dubbed the Millennium Plan, it was to have been ready to receive cruise ships in June 2000, but was thrown off target by logistic difficulties.