Is 200ft becoming the new normal for newbuild crewboats?
http://swiftships.com/news/ys-secures-200ft-crew-boat-build-with-swiftships/
I love how the article talks about how y&s are considered a leader in their field. If a small time company that run mostly 50ft 30 year old crew boats is a leader then what is seacore with their catamaran and dp3 crewboats?
Seacor has DP3 crew boats? Which boats are DP3?
Their newest catamaran is DP3. Think it’s the Lynx or something. Read an article on it.
[QUOTE=Jemplayer;120810]I love how the article talks about how y&s are considered a leader in their field. If a small time company that run mostly 50ft 30 year old crew boats is a leader then what is seacore with their catamaran and dp3 crewboats?[/QUOTE]
Yep small time company…wonder if they are building this boat with a contract already lined up?
Their boats don’t even have AIS. Surprised they spent the money on a new boat.
Don’t think there’s a chance in hell that they got financing without a signed contract. Either that or someone won the Powerball.
Thought it was pretty cool to see a smaller family company start a newbuild. Just was surprised to see a 200ft DP2, considering their largest of the current fleet is a 120. Good luck to them, I’m sure their proud.
[QUOTE=Ctony;120817]Yep small time company…wonder if they are building this boat with a contract already lined up?[/QUOTE]
I can almost guarantee you they don’t have any kind of contract lined up. A lot of people won’t believe this but there are limited players in the GOM that build a vessel with a contract in hand. Chouest, Harvey, some Seacor high spec crew boats, etc… We met with Swiftships several months ago and they were going to build some vessels speculatively and get someone to operate them if they couldn’t get someone to purchase them before they were finished. Swiftships builds a decent boat but they are notorious for not managing their money or business very good. That’s why they are one of, if not the only, yard with little to no activity taking place. Other yards are swamped and they only had (1) vessel under construction before this one started. And it was months with no work before these (2) were happening.
Reading between the lines Saltine is that Y&S got a hell of a good price on that boat.
Would figure Candy Fleet would be the one to pick something up from Swift.
[QUOTE=Jemplayer;121058]Reading between the lines Saltine is that Y&S got a hell of a good price on that boat.
Would figure Candy Fleet would be the one to pick something up from Swift.[/QUOTE]
Either they got a good deal, had some saved up money or just decided to take a plunge with some new equipment. Their is a CCF fund that you can contribute to tax free if you commit those funds to new construction within X years. Maybe they have been stashing away some money in it for several years and the timing was right. I have heard that Gulf Resource Management does this with their new construction boats and only builds once they have enough money in their CCF to pay cash. Jackson and Odyssea Marine were both at Swiftships months back wanting to build crew boats but didn’t pull the trigger with them even though they had ample room to begin immediately. Swiftships is also behind the curve in the fact that they are just starting to build crew boats on jigs like others have been doing. Alot of rumors and hearsay go around shoreside just like they do offshore so I’m not real sure what Y&S has up their sleeve. I know they do work with Chevron so they have to do some things at least halfway right.
I’m not sure what’s going on with Candy Fleet as they have aging equipment (especially the OSV’s) and haven’t done anything to move their company forward as a industry leader. They had their chance when they sold the OSV’s to Hornbeck years back and were kind of on the cutting edge with the jet drive crew boats. They had readily available cash and could have pounced on the opportunity to be a leader in the crew boat market. Judging by the upkeep of some of their vessels and the characters working on them it’s not a first class operation.