50-YEAR-OLD LAKER TO BE REACTIVATED:

Interlake Steamship Company has announced that it has contracted with Bay Shipbuilding for the repowering and reactivation of the "John Sherwin", which was built by AmShip Toledo in 1958 but has been laid up for years.  Read the announcement here.  August 29, 2008.

USCGC DALLAS IN THE BLACK SEA: 

The New York Times prints an AP picture of the USCGC Dallas in the Black Sea port of Batumi.  Maybe I'm missing something and I'll probably be accused of isolationism and/or churlishness, but what is Dallas doing delivering 34 tons of humanitarian supplies to Georgia?  Why couldn't we have put these 34 tons of medical supplies, or whatever they are, on a commercial 747?  Why can't the Sixth Fleet take care of the humanitarian duties in the region, with MSC's help, if necessary?  Doesn't the Coast Guard have enough to do back home, guarding our coast?  We just love throwing the taxpayers' money away, don't we?  Rant, rant, rant: shut up, Colton.  August 27, 2008.

LPD 17 UNFIT TO TRAVEL: 

The problems of the "San Antonio" class of LPDs seem to be never-ending.  The Navy Times now reports that the first of the class, LPD 17, had to be held back in Norfolk yesterday when the Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group left harbor.  Read the report here.  Note the apparently easygoing attitude of the squadron commander: he ought to be breathing fire, but was probably told to shut up.  August 27, 2008.

ATLANTIC MARINE IN FOR CIANBRO: 

Sources say that the second of the two monster MPSV conversions being undertaken by Cianbro in Portland ME for Hornbeck Offshore Services has been shifted to Atlantic Marine, in Jacksonville, with a new completion date in, would you believe, the third quarter of 2009.  There's no sign yet of the first boat being even close to completion and this contract was originally placed in June 2006.  The perils of doing business with shipbuilders who aren't shipbuilders!  August 27, 2008.

JEFFBOAT OUT OF TOWBOAT CONTRACT: 

Sources say that JeffBoat will no longer build the five 4,900-hp towboats that Florida Marine Transportation had contracted for.  The circumstances behind this unusual development are not yet clear.  August 27, 2008.

RETURN OF THE MYSTERY SHIP: 

The DecksAwash blog reports a mystery submarine sighted in Mississippi.  Anyone recognize her?  Is this Northrop Grumman's return to submarine construction, maybe?  August 26, 2008.  OK, I know the answer already: it's the research submersible "Deep Quest".  I had thought that the "Deep Quest" was retired years ago and was now in the Naval Undersea Museum, but apparently not.

LPD 18 INSURV REPORT: 

The Board of Inspection and Survey conducted the final contract trial of USS "New Orleans", (LPD 18), last week.  This ship was "delivered" on December 22, 2006, 20 months ago, and its warranty has expired.  Attached are the INSURV team's report - here - and a "Stoplight" summary - here.  Note the opening sentence:  "USS NEW ORLEANS WAS DEGRADED IN HER ABILITY TO CONDUCT SUSTAINED COMBAT OPERATIONS."  Please read the whole thing.  It's very depressing stuff.  It's as if nothing on this ship works properly.  The Marine Corps should raise hell.  August 22, 2008.

DRILL, DRILL, DRILL, PART 2: 

Senator McCain took his "Drill, drill, drill" mantra offshore yesterday, but to a production platform rather than to an actual drilling rig.  "We need to start drilling offshore at advanced oil rigs like this", he said, although he went on to make it clear that he knew he was on a production platform.  Oh, well, I guess they all look much alike to a politician.  August 20, 2008.

REMEMBER THE KURSK: 

Some remarkable photographs have emerged of the salvage of the Russian submarine Kursk, which was lost with all hands in the Barents Sea, in 2000.  See them here.  August 19, 2008.

LIBERTY MOVING ON ISH? 

International Shipholding filed a 13D with the SEC yesterday revealing that Liberty Shipping has bought just over 5% of ISH for about $7 million.  Read it here.  Note that the filing also says that Liberty's CEO, the inimitable Phil Shapiro, recently proposed a merger to ISH's CEO, Niels Johnsen, and was turned down.  We shall see what happens next.  August 19, 2008.

NAVY SEEKING THIRD DDG 1000? 

The Navy Times reports that the Navy's leadership is crumbling under fire from that great naval strategist, Senator Susan Collins, and may request a third DDG 1000.  Read it here.  Read the Boston Globe's take here.  Totally pathetic.  No balls at all.  Good lord, guys, either run the Navy or resign.  August 19, 2008.

"ABANDON SHIPS" - CSIS DUMPS ON NAVY LEADERS: 

I know that none of you thought that it was just me that thinks the Navy's management of its shipbuilding program is incompetent and calls for wholesale firings.  Now read the new report from the highly authoritative Center for Strategic & International Studies.  Find it here.  Here's the last paragraph of the report's Summary: "The Navy’s shipbuilding efforts are – to be charitable – a triumph of hope over experience. The consequence is a loss of credibility with lawmakers and appropriators and a fleet underequipped to meet the strategic requirements."  August 16, 2008.

CARGO SHIP AGROUND IN MIAMI: 

The "Island Intrepid", a 37-year-old, 2175-dwt, Antiguan-owned, St. Vincent-flag, containership, ran aground in Government Cut, near Miami's Fisher Island, on Wednesday.  Read the Coast Guard's press release here.  August 15, 2008.

LCS 2 CHRISTENING SCHEDULED: 

With the LCS 1 team still basking in the glow of its 42-knot builder's trials, but still to face the rigor of acceptance trials, the rival team - GD/BIW and Austal USA - will hold a christening for LCS 2 in Mobile on October 4.  August 14, 2008.

CRANES COLLAPSE IN JAX: 

Two of the five container cranes at the Blount Island terminal in Jacksonville were blown down yesterday.  Read the story and see video here.  August 14, 2008.

DRILL, DRILL, DRILL: 

Many Republicans insist that increased offshore drilling is critical to energy independence, while many Democrats insist that the oil companies should step up the drilling on the leases to which they already have access before taking on any new ones.  I have yet to hear anyone recognize one basic fact.  It doesn't matter how many leases are made available for drilling or where they are: there are only about 700 drill rigs in the world and, apart from the ones that are in a shipyard for maintenance or en route between jobs, they are all working.  We're building new ones at a good rate - about 50 this year - but there are still quite a few old ones that really need to be retired.  And we cannot increase the construction rate significantly, because drill rigs are not easy to build, requiring significant investment both in facilities and in a skilled, experienced workforce.  Please explain this to the ignorant politicians.  Offshore drilling can, in any case, only be one item in a coordinated program of short-, medium- and long-term actions.  August 12, 2008.

K-SEA REPORTS EXCELLENT YEAR-END RESULTS: 

K-Sea Transportation has reported its results for the fourth quarter and the full year, and they are pretty good.  Net income per "diluted limited partner unit" is up by just under 25% in the fourth quarter and by just over 25% for the year.  Read their press release here and their 10-Q here.  Maybe K-Sea should buy US Shipping.  August 12, 2008.

US SHIPPING REPLACES ONE FINANCIAL WIZ WITH ANOTHER: 

US Shipping Partners, which nowadays always seems to carry that "troubled" label of which the press is so fond, announced today that it was replacing its CEO, financial wizard Paul Gridley, with financial wizard Ron O'Kelley.  The fact that Mr. O'Kelley has no experience of shipping is, of course, completely irrelevant and shame on me for mentioning it.  Read the press release here, the 8-K here and their latest 10-Q, which was also released today, here.  Not mentioned in the announcement is that Mr. O'Kelley is a former director and member of the Audit Committee of Refco, two former CEOs of which have just received long prison sentences for securities fraud, and is a defendant in a class action suit relating to that case.  August 11, 2008.

LCS 1 PERFORMING: 

Click here to see some terrific pictures of LCS 1 on Lake Michigan.  August 8, 2008.

NAVY NAMES NEW NAVSEA LEADERSHIP: 

The CNO has appointed RADM William E. Landay to be PEO Ships and RADM Thomas J. Eccles to be SEA-05.  Read the announcement here.  August 6, 2008.

PHILLY LAYS KEEL FOR OSG'S SEVENTH TANKER: 

The keel for Hull 11, which will be the "Overseas Nikiski", was laid on Monday.  Read the announcement here.  August 6, 2008.

VIDEO OF LCS 1 AT SPEED: 

Video is now available of LCS on speed trials on Lake Michigan.  See it here.  Good stuff.  August 6, 2008.

THE COST OF DDG 1000: 

Now that DDG 1000 is dead, well almost dead, we thought you would like to know what it has cost.  Click here for a table of the Navy's contract awards for DD-21, DD(X) and DDG-1000.  It totals over $13 billion, but we hasten to point out that all this money may not actually have been spent.  Yet.  These are the contract values announced on DefenseLink.  August 6, 2008.

FIRST NSC COMMISSIONED. 

The USCGC Bertholf, (WMSL 750), was commissioned yesterday in Alameda CA.  Read Northrop Grumman's press release here.  Good news.  August 5, 2008.

FINCANWHO?

For the benefit of those who are not quite sure who Fincantieri is, here's a wee bit of history.  In the mid-60s, when the European shipbuilding history started to fall apart in the face of the rise of Japan, the five largest Italian shipbuilders came together to form Italcantieri.  ("Cantieri" means "builders", like "Chantiers" in France.)   Twenty years later, Italcantieri found itself in financial difficulty and the Italian Government nationalized it.  The new state-owned company was called Societa Finanziaria Cantieri Navali, or Fincantieri for short.  The company now operates six commercial and two naval shipyards and has close to 10,000 employees.  Its products cover the entire spectrum of ship types and sizes and its design capability is always ahead of the curve.  In particular, unlike the rest of the world, Fincantieri continues a great Italian tradition: like Italian architecture, art, music and women, Italian ships are beautiful.  The company will be privatized next year, by means of an IPO, which opens up even more possibilities.  Manitowoc Marine Group couldn't have found a better owner.  (Of course, they need my help in developing a strategic plan for MMG, but that has nothing to do with all the foregoing brown ink.)  August 5, 2008.

SUBMARINES FOR TAIWAN:

Now we have a solution to the problem of how to meet our commitment to provide Taiwan with non-nuclear submarines.  See Fincantieri's S1000 here.  August 4, 2008.

NEWS OF THE SEA TRIALS OF LCS 1:

The latest from the Great Lakes is that the Builders' Trials are going very well.  LCS 1 achieved over 38 knots on turbines and is a spectacular sight with its 25-foot rooster tail.  There's a Lockheed Martin video on You-Tube here.  SECNAV is said to be heading that way to see it for himself and everyone is now comfortable that she will be delivered next month and commissioned before the end of the year.  All of which is very good news.  August 4, 2008.

FINCANTIERI BUYS MANITOWOC MARINE:

The rumors are confirmed.  Manitowoc Corp. has agreed to sell its Marine Group to Fincantieri for $120 million in cash, subject to closing by the end of the year.  The dreaded Lockheed Martin is to be a minority investor - less than 20%.  Read Manitowoc's announcement here.  Curiously, Manitowoc filed a revised 10-K only last Thursday: read it here.  The Marine Group had operating income of $26 million last year: without knowing much detail, that probably translates into an EBITDA of around $20 million, which would not be inconsistent with a sale price of $120 million.  The news hasn't done anything for the company's stock, which was down about 6% in a mad rush to sell in the first two hours of trading.  This is probably because the Marine Group had operating income of $10 million in the first quarter, which might indicate that $120 million was a give-away, but it's easy to see that this figure was an aberration.  Read the 10-Q here.  Maybe it will snap back this afternoon.  August 4, 2008.

NOT-SO-SIMPLE ECONOMICS:

Today the New York Times has a long front-page article about the cost of transportation.  Read it here.  The Times notes that some liner operators are now slow-steaming, to save fuel, and that this results in longer shipping times.  Well, yes, it does, and longer shipping times mean higher inventory costs.  But slow-steaming also means that you need more ships to move the same amount of cargo in the same time.  Which is more economical: 100 ships doing 10 knots or 50 ships doing 20 knots?  And how would the ports handle the extra ships?  The Times also says that high shipping costs have the most impact on heavy and/or bulky cargoes and specifically mentions steel and cars.  Well, yes and no.  Certainly, cars are expensive to transport, because they take up a lot of space in relation to their weight, but also because they have high value in relation to both volume and weight.  Steel is not expensive to ship at all, for exactly the same reasons: it doesn't take up a lot of space in relation to its weight, and it has a relatively low value per ton.  In fact, value is much more significant in transportation economics than either weight or volume: that's why fresh fish and cut flowers and people go by air.  How to save fuel without raising the total cost of transportation is a really fascinating and important subject, like reducing emissions, and some such organization as SNAME should be addressing it, instead of sitting off in a corner redesigning the propeller.  August 3, 2008.

HASC HOLDS HEARING ON DDG:

The House Armed Services Committee's Seapower Subcommittee held a hearing on the DDG 1000 program yesterday.  You can find links to the testimony here (you have to scroll down to find the hearing).  As usual, Ron O'Rourke's testimony contains more useful information per paragraph than does the entirety of the Navy's testimony, although the latter makes it clear that the Navy should be really ashamed of itself for wasting so many billions of the taxpayers' money.  What a fiasco!  August 1, 2008.

MORE ON FINCANTIERI AND MARINETTE:

The Italian maritime web site, www.shippingonline.it, reports the same story concerning Fincantieri buying Marinette, coupling the dreaded Lockheed Martin with Fincantieri, as joint buyers.  Read it here.  That's really ominous.  How to kill a shipyard: sell it to Lockheed Martin.  Hey, Maurizio, tell Fincantieri that, if they need a U.S. partner, they should pick someone who can be depended on to help, not to provide the kiss of death.  And if the whole of Manitowoc's Marine Group is for sale, let's see someone else step forward to buy Bay Shipbuilding and Cleveland Ship Repair.  How about it, Great Lakes Towing?  GATX?  Oldenburg?  August 1, 2008.