NASSCO Signs Agreement for Use of Tribon Shipbuilding System

The National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO), has signed a five-year agreement to continue their use of the Tribon Shipbuilding System at the San Diego shipyard in California. NASSCO will use the Tribon system for the design and production of all of their naval and commercial ships. NASSCO implemented the Tribon Hull system in 1995 on the Sealift New Construction program for the U.S. Navy. In 1997 NASSCO implemented the entire Tribon system including, all hull and outfitting applications. The agreement includes a provision that a Tribon system will be installed at Bath Iron Works, which is also a member of the General Dynamics Corporation Marine Systems Group. Bath Iron Works is working with NASSCO on creating the detailed design of the U.S. Navy’s new T-AKE logistic ships. As part of the agreement, Tribon Solutions will develop functions for configuration management of a series of ships. These new functions will secure the validity and integrity of the product data for the ships in a series. The T-AKE project will be the first to use the Tribon configuration management functions. All of the ships in NASSCO’s existing order book are being designed and built using the Tribon Shipbuilding System. These ships include: The Strategic Sealift Program In April this year NASSCO launched the USNS Soderman, the eighth and last of this class of Strategic Sealift ships, all built for the U.S. Navy to carry military equipment for the U.S. Army. With a length of 950 ft., and with a beam of 105 ft., these large, medium-speed Ro/Ros are the largest ships that can fit through the Panama Canal. Totem Ocean Trailer Express (TOTE) On June 3rd NASSCO celebrated the keel-laying ceremony for the M.V. North Star, the second of two ORCA-class RoRo trailer ships being built for TOTE´s Tacoma-to-Anchorage service. The new ships are 839 ft. Long, have a beam of 118 ft., and carry 600 cargo trailers and 200 autos. The ships are designed for the rigors of Alaskan service and feature the latest in environmental protection technology. The first ship, the Midnight Sun, is scheduled for delivery in early 2003 and the North Star later in the year. BP Tankers In September 2000, NASSCO received a 630 million USD contract from BP for the construction of three state-of-the-art double hull tankers for the carriage of crude oil from Valdez, Alaska, to BP’s U.S. West Coast refineries. In September 2001, BP exercised an option for a fourth ship. The ship’s design places strong emphasis on environmental safety and redundancy. Construction of the first ship will begin in early 2002 with the first delivery in late 2003, and subsequent deliveries in 2004, 2005, and 2006. T-AKE Program The U.S. Navy has awarded NASSCO a 709-million USD contract for the design and construction of the first two ships in the T-AKE program, a new class of combat logistics force ships. The award includes options exercisable by the Navy for 10 additional ships over the next six years, for a potential contract value of approximately 3.7-billion USD. The T-AKE 1 is a dry cargo/ammunition ship, the lead ship in the Lewis and Clark class. Functional design work on the T-AKE is underway, with construction beginning in 2003 and delivery of the first ship scheduled for 2005.