State Pier News

Offshore wind developersØrsted and Eversource have agreed to charter Dominion Energy's Charybdis, the first Jones Act-compliant offshore wind turbine installation vessel in the United States, for the construction of two offshore wind farms in the Northeast.Charybdis is being built in Texas by Keppel AmFels and will first be deployed out of New London harbor to support the construction of Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind offshore wind farms, both of which are being developed jointly by Ørsted and Eversource.

Offshore wind caught a favorable gust with the 2020 election of Joe Biden, and the following breeze from the early 2021 reconfiguration of the U.S. Senate toward Democrats. Though widely touted as a growth engine for maritime businesses (as well as shoreside trades), the latter years of the Trump administration seemed to see delay after delay.The class society DNV has been involved in offshore wind since its outset in the early 1990s, and now has 2,000 energy experts working in its efforts supporting this power source.

Now that the United States finally can envision steady winds blowing from the Atlantic Seaboard due to a pipeline of offshore wind farms on the horizon, the maritime industry can finally step up and earn some of the benefits. This includes shipbuilding, port construction, and worker training. This article reviews the key developments and forecasts the growth in maritime jobs.The federal and state governments share responsibility for developing offshore wind farms and bringing the wind into the power grid and…

The tankship 'Harbour Feature' towed free of the Sarah Long Bridge, on the Piscataqua River in Portsmouth, N.H. after drifting alongside the bridge. Tug boats were able to safely tow the 473-foot, Portuguese-flagged, motor vessel Harbour Feature from the bridge to the state pier during slack tide. Earlier, Monday, US Coast Guard watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Northern New England received a report from the Harbour Feature that it had become disabled and allided with the bridge. There have been no reports of injury or pollution, but a six-to-twelve inch rupture above the waterline of the vessel near the port ballast tank has been observed. The incident is under investigation.

We rolled into town on the last train north, arriving Portland, Maine at 2:00 a.m. Half an hour later we were at the dock, hauling our kit - and when Marine News travels light, we're like Hannibal crossing the Alps - over silent tugs resting abreast: Captain Bill, Justine McAllister, Stamford. On the phone a few days before, Capt. Brian Fournier had said something about leaving a light in Stamford's forward port cabin, and there, finally, it shone. But something brighter had caught our eye, and could we believe it? Last time we saw something like it, it was in Aberdeen, Scotland. Now, from Stamford's starboard rail, it loomed and glistened four hundred feet away - rising nearly as high - a pair of deep-sea drilling platforms, afloat waters barely up to their ankles.

The U.S. Coast Guard established a temporary security zone at the North Carolina State Pier Authority (NCSPA), Wilmington, to include portions of the Cape Fear River and Eagle Island. This security zone will be in effect through at least November 7, 2004. 69 Fed. Reg. 42876 (HK Law).

The world's largest submersible lift ship arrived in Portland Harbor today at 10:00 a.m. where it docked at the International Marine Terminal. Measuring 712 ft. (217 m), the vessel is owned by Offshore Heavy Transport (OHT) of Lysaker, Norway. Viktor Lenac Shipyard in Rijekak, Croatia has chartered the vessel to lift and carry the 50-year-old 844-ft. (257.2 m) dry dock, used by the Bath Iron Works (Portland) Ship Repair Facility. The Croatian yard purchased the dry dock from the State of Maine for $3 million earlier this month. It is scheduled for renovations for eventual use in the Croatian shipbuilding and repair industry. During the first week of May, the dry dock is scheduled to be moved to the Maine State Pier and divided into two sections.

The Coast Guard announced its determination that the waterway approach to the proposed Weaver's Cove Liquefied Natural Gas terminal in Fall River, Mass., is unsuitable for LNG tanker traffic due to navigational safety challenges. In his letter of recommendation, the Captain of the Port and Commander of Coast Guard Sector Southeastern New England, Capt. Roy Nash, said that a segment of the transit route extending from Sandy Point to the Weaver's Cove site, presents significant navigational safety challenges to the proposed LNG vessels' size and transit frequency. Chief among the Coast Guard's concerns is the limited maneuvering room between the old and new Brightman Street bridges. The bridges are nearly parallel to each other and are only about 1100 feet apart.

With a history spanning three generations and more than 80 years, Bender Shipbuilding & Repair Co., Inc. is quite the familiar face in the Gulf Coast marketplace. Tracing origins back to 1919, when Theodore Jackson (T.J.) Bender, armed with knowledge from his apprenticeship at Ollinger Iron Works, formed Bender Welding and Machine Company; Bender Shipbuilding has adjusted and changed to market demand, building an assortment of vessels - ranging from barges and pushboats to towboats and shrimp vessels to OSVs and U.S. Navy Ships, and pretty much everything in between. T.J. Bender didn't survive to see the yard's transformation from machine ship to boatbuilder, as the company founder passed away in 1948.