Second Research Vessel at Great Lakes Shipyard
Great Lakes Shipyard, Cleveland, Ohio, will perform repairs, haul out and drydocking, as necessary, to the U.S. Geological Survey Research Vessel Sturgeon under a fleet maintenance contract with the Great Lakes Science Center, Ann Arbor, Mich. of the U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior. The 105 ft. long Sturgeon was built in 1974 and is home-ported in Cheboygan, Mich. The Sturgeon is the Center's second largest vessel with great geographic range and advanced scientific abilities. The primary mission of the R/V Sturgeon is to support fisheries related science in Lake Michigan using state-of-the-art electronic technology and traditional sampling gear such as bottom and midwater trawls and gillnets. As the Nation's largest water, earth, and biological science and civilian mapping agency, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) collects, monitors, analyzes, and provides scientific understanding about natural resource conditions, issues, and problems.
Great Lakes Shipyard, a division of The Great Lakes Towing Company, has expanded its capabilities and workforce to include new HandySize tug, barge and vessel construction, and repairs as well as aluminum and steel fabrication. This new state-of-the-art shipyard and drydock facility will include a new 700-ton Marine Travelift now being manufactured by Marine Travelift, Sturgeon Bay, Wis. and installed in mid 2011. This Travelift will be the largest of its type on the U.S. and Canadian Great Lakes, and the second largest Travelift in North America.
The Great Lakes Shipyard’s Order Book now includes orders for construction of two new 70-foot Aluminum Research Vessels for U.S. Geological Survey’s Great Lakes Science Center, a new 3,200 h.p.HandySize tug, two Floating Restroom Barges for the U.S. National Park Service and the drydocking of the USGS research vessels Grayling and Sturgeon. The Yard just completed the delivery of two new barges for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to be used on the Corp’s Upper Mississippi River Dam project and the drydocking of the Miller Boat Line ferry William Market.
