Sherwin-Williams Awarded for Work on USS Ronald Reagan

By Michelle Howard May 15, 2014

USS Ronald Reagan (U.S. Navy photo)

Sherwin-Williams said it was awarded Military Coatings Project Award of Excellence for exceptional coatings work on U.S. Navy’s Nimitz-class nuclear-powered supercarrierUSS Ronald Reagan at SSPC 2014.

The award recognizes exceptional coatings work performed on U.S. military ships, structures or facilities.

“This award is truly an honor for our company in partnership with the U.S. Navy and IMIA,” said Mark Schultz, Marine Project Development Manager, Sherwin-Williams Protective & Marine Coatings. “It was an exceptional team effort to coordinate and execute this large project with such a limited time frame.”

In the seven months during the USS Ronald Reagan’s drydocking at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (Bremerton, Wash.) in 2012-2013, more than 17 acres of steel would need to be preserved on the ship’s freeboard, underwater hull, sea chests, cat walks, various tanks, voids and vent plenums. This project was reportedly the largest preservation project to have ever been completed at the shipyard.

IMIA prepared the steel surfaces using nearly 50 blast nozzles and eight 22-ton steel abrasive recycling units simultaneously. Once the ship’s surfaces had been prepared, a number of Sherwin-Williams coatings products were used to protect the asset long-term including SeaGuard 5000 HS, Polysiloxane XLE-80 HAPS-Free Haze Gray LSA, SeaGuard Ablative Antifouling Coating and FastClad ER.

“Our high-performance technologies are ideal for this project to provide long lasting service and value to the Navy,” said Schultz. “For example, our Polysiloxane XLE-80 offers enduring color and gloss retention in harsh marine environments. Our one-coat, rapid cure, epoxy system, FastClad ER, combats premature corrosion on the vulnerable edges, corners and weld seams of seawater ballast tanks and fuel tanks. Because we can install these coatings quickly and they cure rapidly, we can reduce docking costs by returning the ship to service on schedule.”

The honor was recently awarded at SSPC 2014 in Orlando, Fla.