Port Chester News

John Waterhouse is a ubiquitous character in the U.S. maritime industry, a deep-thinker, a signature bow tie and more than three decades of naval architecture and marine engineering experience and success as co-owner of the Seattle-based Elliott Bay Design Group (EBDG).While growing up, John Waterhouse spent some time in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and it was as a young boy standing on the shores of English Bay, watching ships come in from around the world to load and unload their cargos, when he realized that a maritime career could be his future.

Expansion Strengthens Client Access and Relationship Management.Elliott Bay Design Group proudly announces the opening of its new East Coast office in New York. The office will provide professional engineering and naval architecture services as well as waterfront development expertise to clients on the East Coast and is a springboard for future growth in the region. "This is an exciting time for EBDG and marks a major milestone in our 30-year history," states Christina Villiott, VP of Sales & Marketing.

A barge has run aground in Coney Island Channel near Brighton Beach, N.Y., Wednesday morning.At approximately 9 a.m., a tug, the Eastern Dawn, was pushing the barge Port Chester when it ran soft aground near Coney Island Channel Buoy 3.The tug and barge crew confirmed there were 14,000 barrels of fuel oil on board the barge and reported no pollution.Crewmembers from U.S. Coast Guard Station New York responded to ensure the safety of the barge and surrounding vessel traffic.Pollution response teams and investigation officials from Coast Guard Sector New York were also on scene to assess the incident and confirmed no fuel entered the water.The barge Port Chester was able to refloat during high tide at approximately 2:30 p.m., and arrived at its destination in Jamaica, Queens, N.Y.

Britain’s largest independent ship repairer and marine engineering services provider Burgess Marine announced that in partnership with Portsmouth City Council it has opened a new ship repair facility within Portsmouth Commercial Port, U.K. Burgess Marine Ltd. and MMD Shipping Services Ltd, part of Portsmouth City Council, launched this new strategic partnership in style with an emergency three-day alongside docking for Wightlink Ferries. Burgess Marine and MMD have been building a relationship over the last few months for the use of Flat House Quay in Portsmouth’s Commercial Port.

Meercat Workboats yesterday moved from Portchester to new, purpose built premises in Hythe Marine Park, Southampton, UK. To coincide with the move the company’s management team has been restructured, two new vessels have been delivered and one new order confirmed. The new site is 1,600 sqm, has two 20-tonne gantry cranes, a machine shop, an electrical workshop, a hydraulic workshop, aluminum welding bays, steel fabrication bays, dedicated stores, offices and customer parking. A sum of circa £500,000 has been invested in the move. Late in September Meercat Workboats delivered two new build vessels: MC26 into the Aquaculture sector and MC28 to a Marine Civils Contractor. The company has relocated in time to conclude two further builds: MC27 (a 14m workboat) and MC29 (a 15m workboat).

Britain’s largest independent ship repairer and marine engineering services provider, Burgess Marine, has today completed the acquisition of the Superyacht centric procurement specialist Global Services and its sister company Global New Builds. The acquisition is Burgess Marine’s fifth to date and its second since RJD Partners’ private equity investment in February of last year. “Whilst on paper this is an acquisition the operational reality is far, far closer to that of a merger,” said Nicholas Warren, the Chief Executive Officer of Burgess Marine.

The U.K.’s Meercat Workboats says it scored a hat-trick; the Hampshire-based boat builder announced it is moving premises, that Seawork was a huge success and that it expects to benefit from the recent Brexit vote. MC28 is a 15m x 6m monohull workboat currently in build for Briggs Marine at the company’s Portchester footprint near Portsmouth in Hampshire. To coincide with the end of the build, Meercat Workboats will be moving to Units 3a & 3b Hythe Marine Park, Shore Road, Hythe, near Southampton. The move is anticipated to take place in September 2016.

U.K.-based Meercat Workboats has sold a custom built monohull workboat to Briggs Marine. The vessel (Hull no. 28) is 15.5m LOA, and 6m beam. Fabrication is well under way at Meercat’s Portchester facility in Portsmouth, Hampshire, with Briggs Marine to take to delivery later this year. The workboat has been configured to facilitate a deck cargo capacity of 20 metric tons and a liquid cargo capacity of sum 2 x 10,000 liters; with 2 x Doosan main engines and a BETA Marine 21kVA generator.

Burgess Marine has partnered with Kent-based Mechanica Utilities to maximize the use of its Dover footprint and share the company’s workshop and fabrication facilities, nationally, across all nine of its U.K. locations. Mechanica Utilities is a mechanical and electrical repair company which specializes in site work and workshop repairs on all mechanical and electrical equipment, mainly within the water utility market. Mechanica will share Burgess Marine’s facilities at its UK locations in  Dover, Lowestoft, Portsmouth, Portchester, Southampton, Marchwood, Poole, Avonmouth, and Devonport.

The final phase of a competition to develop novel adaptive autonomous ocean sampling network (AAOSN) management systems for the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) is now underway. Two UK consortia will move forward to develop systems capable of coordinating a suite of marine autonomous vehicles gathering data from the ocean over periods of months, and tracking and sampling dynamic features. The two-phase competition was launched last September by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) in partnership with the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) and Innovate UK…

Meercat Workboats have delivered its first vessel under the umbrella of new owners Burgess Marine with the hand-over of a 14m. workboat to Scottish fish farming specialists Dawnfresh Farming. Meercat completed the steel build, named the Falls of Lora, at its facilities in Portchester, Hampshire, and the vessel is now in operation at Dawnfresh’s trout farming operation on Loch Etive, where it is being used for general fish farm maintenance with a particular focus on feeding operations.

ASV Ltd in association with Planet Ocean Ltd, have received funding from the GROW:OffshoreWind initiative to investigate how the use of Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASVs) could reduce the costs of offshore wind farm support. The project will look at using ASVs to reduce the cost of tasks related to the construction, operation and maintenance (O&M) of offshore wind farms. Together ASV and Planet Ocean will look at scour monitoring, cable position tracking, wave and meteorological monitoring, current profile monitoring and underwater noise monitoring. ASV will be presenting two of their ASVs, the C-Enduro and C-Worker whilst Planet Ocean who specialise in the provision of marine instruments will look at mission and sensor options.

The ASV C-Enduro embarked on a robotics mission along with six other unmanned marine vessels off the southwest of England. Selected to take part by the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), C-Enduro is fitted with a range of meteorological and oceanographic sensors to collect scientific data about ocean  processes and marine life. The project, coordinated by NOC, is the most ambitious of its kind in Europe. The vehicles are aiming to travel up to 300 miles over the next 20 days.

Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASV) Ltd. completed phase one of a two phase C-Target 9 program with South Korea. The highly maneuverable, ultra realistic, high speed marine target drones will be used in the test and evaluation of a new weapon system. In early 2013, Korean company GigaRFlooked to ASV to provide four 9-meter target drones for the Agency of Defense Development (ADD).ASV has worked closely with GigaRF to ensure the timely delivery of the first two vehicles. Phase one was completed on October 17 with the first two boats carrying out acceptance tests at ASV’s site in Portchester…

Burgess Marine acquire Testbank Ship Repair, making them the country's largest independent in the ship repair business. Burgess Marine, headquartered in Dover and with sites in Poole and Portsmouth’s naval base, has acquired Testbank Ship Repair, with locations at Southampton docks, Portchester, near Portsmouth, and Avonmouth, near Bristol. The deal will see 120 full-time staff work under the Burgess Marine banner from the six sites, with a combined annual turnover of £20m-plus. Nick Warren, Managing Director, Burgess Marine, said: “The various work streams of both companies very much complement each other, so it made compelling business…

Western Australian ship builder Strategic Marine has signed a Sales & Service Agency agreement with UK-based marine and repair company Testbank Ship Repair Ltd. This is the first in a number of Sales & Service Agents which Strategic Marine announced it was developing in February 2012. This partnership has been formed as Strategic Marine and Testbank work together to provide marine, ship repair and through-life support services to the emerging offshore wind sector. "We announced…

The Alaska State Ferry Lituya, a 180 ft motor vessel home ported in Metlakatla broke loose from its moorings at the ferry pier and is reported aground one mile north on Scrub Island, in Port Chester at 1 a.m. Jan. 30. Coast Guard Cutter Anthony Petit, a 175 ft buoy tender home ported in Ketchikan, Alaska, got underway to arrive on the scene and launched assets as soon as weather conditions permitted. No one was on board the Lituya at the time of the incident. Weather conditions at the incident were winds from the southeast at 26 mph with gusts up to 80 mph, visibility was three miles, overcast with heavy rain and seas of six to eight-feet.

The Mirabella V mast is loaded on a barge to leave the VT Halmatic Portchester shipyard. VT Halmatic completed production of the world’s tallest yacht mast, which will be fitted on the Mirabella V under construction by parent company VT Shipbuilding. The 90 m hollow carbon epoxy mast, which has a maximum cross section of 1.6 m and structural thickness of up to 40mm, will support some 3,400 sq. m. of sail. Having been loaded onto a barge at VT Halmatic’s Portchester shipyard, the mast was transported to Southampton Docks where the rigging will be dressed and the mast will be stepped before fitting out is completed. The mast has been manufactured in halves, with the back half comprising two sections and the front half divided into three sections.

The 32m ferry Spirit of Portsmouth arrives in Portsmouth from Poland for fitout at VT Halmatic's Portchester Shipyard. The Camarc designed vessel will enter service in June 2005.

The 32m ferry Spirit of Portsmouth arrives in Portsmouth from Poland for fitout at VT Halmatic's Portchester Shipyard. The Camarc designed vessel will enter service in June 2005.

VT Halmatic announced a new Marine Products Spares Team to co-ordinate, support and process VT Halmatic spares orders. Based at Portchester Shipyard, the new dedicated team of specialists will focus on handling customers and owners requirements in a timely and cost effective manner. The team has many years experience in handling VT Marine Products equipment world-wide and has an industry leading reputation in keeping numerous naval, and government agencies working and maintaining serviceability of equipment fitted to many high speed ferry services. VT Halmatic expects its support to be faster and more competitive and now offers the full VT Halmatic…

Lloyd Werft's Werner Lüken may not be too sure as to whether ship repair yards constitute "port facilities" under the ISPS Code but others do not share his doubts. Speaking at the Shiprepair Conference and Exhibition in London last month, he said he really didn't think that repair yards should be included under the Code's requirements and that newbuilding yards certainly shouldn't be. However, he admitted to being in ongoing discussions with the German authorities on the point and, as perhaps the world's most prominent cruiseship yard, there is a lot at stake. The arguments are complex and will keep lawyers busy for months. However, as Peter Rowat of the London Shipping Consultancy pointed out, whether or not repair facilities are covered by the Code's requirements is not really the issue.

VT Halmatic said that Professor Bob Cripps, currently Engineering Manager at the RNLI, will be joining VT Halmatic as Technical Director as of May 9, 2005. Professor Cripps worked at Lloyds before moving to the RNLI and has extensive technical knowledge and experience of small craft and composite technology. The continuing challenge for technical excellence is essential to the VT Halmatic business plan. Professor Bob Cripps will lead the technical team supported by Dr Andrew Humphries, Marine Design Manager and Dr Robin Mableson, who heads up the Composite Technology Centre. The VT Composite Technology Centre (CTC) was formed in 2001 by the amalgamation of composite expertise from various divisions within the VT Group.