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The Global Zero U.S. Nuclear Policy Commission has published its report "Modernizing U.S. Nuclear Strategy, Force Structure and Posture", and an excellent document it is.  Find it here.  Of course, a lot of you Genghis Khan types won't like it but the qualifications of the members of the commission are impeccably conservative and their arguments are hard to dispute.  In terms of hardware, the net result is that land-based ICBMs go away completely, leaving us with 10 SSBNs and 18 B-2s.  May 16, 2012.

Our almost-totally-useless Congress has finally done something useful: it has reauthorized the ExIm Bank.   Read the story in the Huffington Post here.  The Bank may not be used much for the benefit of the maritime industry but it can be and should be.  In particular, ExIm financing of spending with U.S. shipyards and marine manufacturers is available to Petrobras for up to $2 billion and to Pemex for up to $1 billion.  We can build rigs and OSVs better and cheaper than Brazilian and European yards: let's sell 'em some.  May 16, 2012.

P.S.: Shipfax has some much better pictures: see them here.  May 14, 2012.

The Pacific Daily News reports that the Navy is negotiating a 40-year lease for the Guam shipyard with the incumbent contractor, Guam Industrial Services.  Read the story here.  Is this a wise move?  Guam Industrial Services may have been the only bidder for this lease but does that mean that they automatically get the lease or could the Navy operate the yard themselves?  May 11, 2012.

The ill-conceived American Feeder Lines has shut down but there may be a few loose ends to embarrass the U.S. maritime industry for a while.  Starting with the arrest of the AFL New England in Halifax and the fact that its crew is effectively trapped on board.  Read the story in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald here.  May 11, 2012.

Last month Horizon's CEO said "Horizon Lines is, and always has been, a very staunch supporter of the Jones Act and all of its requirements."  Yesterday, however, he said "In 2012, we are making significant investments in our Jones Act fleet with the dry-docking of three of our Puerto Rico vessels in Asia." Read this basket-case of a company's terrible first-quarter results here.  A net loss of $27 million on revenues of $263 million!  May 11, 2012.

Defense News reports that the USS Freedom, (LCS 1), will be based in Singapore, starting in March 2013.  Read the article here.  Do you think she'll be operational by then?  Well at least there are some competent shipyards in Singapore.  May 11, 2012.

It's good to see Huntington Ingalls investing in major assets that will serve them well in the future, especially after so many years of their predecessor companies throwing money at production facilities which, it seemed, they didn't know how to manage.  On Wednesday, HII announced their investment in new facilities for AMSEC, indicating their intention to grow the consulting side of the business, something previously signaled by AMSEC's deal with Hanjin Heavy Industries in Subic Bay.  Read that announcement here.  Then, on Friday, they announced their investment in a new campus for the Apprentice School, one of the jewels of our industry.  Read that announcement here.  All this is excellent.  May 7, 2012.

The Navy has announced that the second America-class LHA will be named Tripoli, (LHA 7).  Read the announcement here.  Good choice, for once.  May 5, 2012.

The latest Virginia-class submarine, the future USS Mississippi, (SSN 782), was delivered to the Navy by Electric Boat yesterday, ahead of schedule and under budget.  Read EB's announcement here and NAVSEA's here.  May 3, 2012.

P.S.  It has been suggested to me that this statement might be a response to pressure from other Jones Act operators who are said to be seriously ticked off at reports of Horizon looking for waivers of the Build-American provisions of the Act.  April 30, 2012.

The German-financed company which was planning to make the "National Marine Highway" a reality has closed its doors.  Read the story in the Journal of Commerce here.  Sad but not surprising.  Some of us have said for years (decades?) that to have any chance of success, a coastal container shipping service needs to be backed by a major trucking company.  April 30, 2012.

Despite all the rah-rah nonsense from SECNAV and the CNO about how wonderful the Freedom class of LCSs is, word continues to escape from the lower levels about how screwed up it is.  The latest public cataloging of the contractor's poor performance comes from the Project for Governmental Oversight, or POGO: read it here.  Meanwhile, there is a steady flow of complaints from inside the team about the decline in standards that has resulted from the replacement of Marinette's experienced shipbuilders with folks who don't have a clue what they are doing.  OK, that's not new.  What is new is that I am now getting reports that the Navy is threatening to terminate Lockheed Martin's contract if they don't get their act together soon.  Well good, although I'll believe it only when it happens, as SECNAV and the CNO are apparently in LMT's corner.  So, terminate the LMT contract, keep the Austal contract going and start a rational, affordable, off-the-shelf OPV program going in parallel.  April 29, 2012.

The first Joint High-Speed Vessel, the future USNS Spearhead, (JHSV 1), completed Builder's Trials this week, achieving a maximum speed of more than 35 knots.  Read Austal's release here.  Good stuff.  April 26, 2012.

The Washington State DoT has ordered a second 144-car ferry from Vigor Industrial.  Read WSF's announcement here and Vigor's here.  The price is $110 million, with delivery in "early" 2015.  April 26, 2012.

The GSA has put the Sea Shadow, (IX 529), built by Lockheed in 1983, up for sale, together with the Hughes Mining Barge, (HMB 1), built by NASSCO in 1972 to support the Hughes Glomar Explorer in the great attempt to recover that Soviet submarine.  The former is sitting in the latter and they are for sale as a single lot.  Read the announcement here.  Why anyone would want the Sea Shadow is beyond me, but the barge could be handy, since it's effectively a very strange type of covered floating dry-dock.  Buy it for the dry-dock and give the Sea Shadow to a museum.  By the way, in case you were wondering, the Hughes Glomar Explorer is now the GSF Explorer and is drilling wells offshore Indonesia.  April 26, 2012.

The penultimate ship of the Lewis and Clark class, the USNS Medgar Evers, (T-AKE 13), was delivered on Tuesday.  Read MSC's announcement here and NASSCO's here.  April 26, 2012.

Although built by Mathis in Camden, the Mary A Whalen is a classic 170-foot Bushey tanker, of the design employed for decades in the distribution of petroleum products around East Coast ports.  As far as I can tell, Ira S. Bushey & Sons themselves built 20 of these beautiful little boats in their yard on Gowanus Creek, in Brooklyn; at least 14 more were built in Camden by Mathis and RTC.  Now, of course, the trade is almost all tug-and-barge and the Mary A. Whelan is, I think, the sole survivor of this class.  Read the story in today's New York Times here and visit her web site here.  It would be a shame if she has to be scrapped.  Hasn't anybody got a pier they're not using?  April 22, 2012.

Crowley subsidiary Titan Salvage has been selected by Costa to salvage the Costa Concordia.  Read Costa's announcement here.  Titan will team in this endeavor with Micoperi, the Italian company that is a major offshore contractor specializing in heavy lifts.  The size and significance of this project really puts the spotlight on Titan and Micoperi, but it also underlines Titan's leadership position in the marine salvage world.  April 22, 2012.

The New Orleans-based operator adds 17 towboats and 650 inland barges with its acquisition of United Barge Lines, one of the three pieces of United Marine Group currently on the block.  No news of the price to be paid, since both companies are privately held.  Also, no news yet of any deals for UMG's deep-water fleet or its bulk terminal.  April 22, 2012.

The first Austal-built LCS, the USS Independence, has left Mayport and transferred to San Diego.  Finally!  Her maiden voyage required, of course, a transit of the Panama Canal.  Read about it here.  April 19, 2012.

P.S.  There is obviously a lot of interest in this topic of irregular ship naming.  Rather than discuss it here, I refer you all to Ron O'Rourke's recent review for the Congressional Research Service, which you can read here.  In addition, there have been several articles on this subject in the U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings, particularly notable being Norman Polmar's contributions.  April 19, 2012.

Word is that Mid-Ocean Marine has contracted with Seabulk for the operation of the 49,000-dwt American Phoenix, now being completed by BAE Systems Ship Repair Southeast, in their yard in Mobile AL.  But do they have a charterer?  April 18, 2012.

Leevac Shipyards has signed a contract to build two Rob Allan-designed Z-Tech 2400 escort tugs for the well-known ownership team of Bay-Houston Towing and Suderman & Young.  Read the announcement here.  Good for Leevac, which last built a tug in 1996.   There's no mention of options in this announcement but they do talk about "delivery of the first and second vessels slated in June 2013 and September 2013", language that clearly suggests the possibility of third and fourth vessels.  Funny how these owners move their business around: in the past five years, they've taken two from Main Iron Works, four from Orange Shipbuilding and two from Washburn & Doughty.  April 18, 2012.

Amazing to report, the next five Virginia-class attack submarines will receive names that are consistent with past naming practice.   SSNs 786 through 790 will be named Illinois, Washington, Colorado, Indiana and South Dakota.  Read the report on military.com here.  April 17, 2012.

The third and final Zumwalt-class DDG will be named the USS Lyndon B. Johnson, the Navy has announced.  Read the release here.  This seems to represent a return to non-standard ship naming by the Navy, just when we all thought that they had got the message and mended their ways.  LBJ will be the first President to give his name to a surface combatant, which are usually named for naval heroes.  So far, 11 aircraft carriers, 11 ballistic missile submarines and one attack submarine have been named for Presidents.  A few Presidents' names show up among the auxiliaries, but they have usually snuck in there on a commercial ship.    April 17, 2012.

Missile Subs		Carriers
George Washington	SSBN 598	Franklin D. Roosevelt	CVB 42
Theodore Roosevelt	SSBN 600	John F. Kennedy	CVA 67
Abraham Lincoln	SSBN 602	Dwight D. Eisenhower	CVN 69
Thomas Jefferson	SSBN 618	Theodore Roosevelt	CVN 71
Andrew Jackson	SSBN 619	Abraham Lincoln	CVN 72
John Adams	SSBN 620	George Washington	CVN 73
James Monroe	SSBN 622	Harry S. Truman	CVN 75
Woodrow Wilson	SSBN 624	Ronald Reagan	CVN 76
James Madison	SSBN 627	George H. W. Bush	CVN 77
Ulysses S. Grant	SSBN 631	Gerald Ford	CVN 78
James K. Polk	SSBN 645	John F. Kennedy	CVN 79
Attack Subs		Destroyers
Jimmy Carter	SSN 23	Lyndon B. Johnson	DDG 1002

The British newspapers are reporting that one aspect of the rapprochement with the Burmese Government is a deal to recover 20 WWII-vintage never-been-flown Spitfires.  Read the Guardian's coverage here.  The planes had just been delivered, in July 1945, when the war was ending.  They were in knock-down configuration and were buried in a 40-foot-deep hole, in their crates and still in all their protective wrappings and coatings.  An enterprising Brit has located them and they are to be dug up and taken back to the UK.  Isn't that great?  Not only is it a great story in itself, but it practically doubles the size of the RAF overnight.  I don't suppose there are any knock-down boats buried anywhere, are there?  We shipped a bunch of them to the Pacific theater in the later stages of the war.  April 16, 2012.

An article in Defense News reveals the extent to which the Navy and its contractors are still struggling to get the two parallel LCS programs running smoothly.  Read the story here.   Note the curious use of the English language in defense of these programs.  “These are relevant ships for the relevant future and they resonate with the need out there,” said the CNO.  “They’re not only incredibly competent and capable now, but they will continue to be over the lifetime that they are in our fleet,” said the SECNAV.  Bizarre!  Let's be blunt (for once).  These are two excellent hulls being built by two excellent shipbuilders.  The problem is what's in them.  The Navy has overloaded them with multiple missions and the associated systems.  Instead of building 55 very expensive boats, all of which can all do three different missions, but none of them well, why not drop back to building 55 (or more) less expensive boats, each of which can do one of the three missions very well?  If you follow me.  April 16, 2012.

P.S.: The current issue of Industry Week has an interview with Mike Petters.  It's in two parts: read them here and here.  Doesn't say much.  April 12, 2012.

Today, Horizon released its 4th quarter results and filed its 10-K for 2011.  Read the press release here.  Is this company dead in the water or what?  Now SFI is stuck with it.  If this were not the liner shipping industry, we could let Horizon fail and move on, but the cargo has to move.  How bad does this have to get before a real buyer steps up?  Horizon doesn't need yet another financial buyer, it needs a strategic buyer, someone who can run the business efficiently and who can modernize the fleet.  There are two obvious candidates: I guess that they are both waiting for something more to fall off the Horizon jalopy.  April 11, 2012.

Ship Finance International has terminated Horizon Lines' charter of the five containerships which had been employed in Horizon's misbegotten China service.  In return, they will get $40 million in second-lien notes and warrants for 10% of the stock.  Read SFI's announcement here and Horizon's here.  Note that the financial structure of the company is quite significantly changed.  In addition, there is another management shuffle: Alex Mandl and all those directors who were there before the last reshuffle - only last November - are gone, except for the CEO, Stephen Fraser.  All very interesting.  April 10, 2012.

The Canadian federal budget published the other day includes C$5.2 billion for "renewal" of the Canadian Coast Guard, spread over 11 years.  No details are provided as to how it will be spent but Vancouver Shipyards issued a press release - read it here - that suggests that they will be the recipient.  The budget also included C$101 million for restoration and modernization of the venerable graving dock in Esquimalt BC.  April 5, 2012.

As expected, the capital injection from Seacor and Whippoorwill has resulted in an early emergence from Chapter 11 for Jones Act Atlantic Coast non-contiguous operator Trailer Bridge.  Read the announcement here.  Now that Seacor and Whippoorwill own 91% of the business, and with Horizon and Sea Star still floundering, can we expect to see some growth?  You bet!  April 4, 2012.

Mexican drilling contractor Perforadora Central has ordered another Super 116E jack-up from Keppel AmFELS.  The price is $205 million and delivery is in 1Q 2014.  Read the announcement here.  This will be the fourth rig that AmFELS will have built for Central.  April 2, 2012.

The GAO has published its annual review of the DoD's big-money procurement programs.  Read it here.  There are close to a hundred programs in the "portfolio", but only eleven involve shipbuilding and of these, it's the LCS and LHA programs that concern the GAO most.  Both programs entered production before the design was complete and have been swamped with changes as a result.  The GAO also seems to be questioning whether the LCS prices will hold up on the later boats in the series.  The LHA is in even worse shape.  It has suffered from poor quality workmanship and excessive rework caused both by that and by mistakes in the engineering.  Note that it appears that the Joint Strike Fighter will set an LHA's flight deck on fire: there's brilliant design work for you.  April 2, 2012.

The Coast Guard has contracted with Ingalls Shipbuilding for $88 million of long-lead-time material (LLTM) for the sixth National Security Cutter, (WMSL 755).  Read the announcement here.  Coincidentally, the third NSC, USCGC Stratton (WMSL 752) was commissioned on Saturday.  Read that story here.  April 1, 2012.

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