I had an opportunity to work on tugs on the Columbia River before I went deep sea. One never knows about the road not taken but I do wonder from time to time if that’d been the wiser choice.
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Sticker shock and yard availability is what I had heard. There is also a significant learning curve between operating cutter suction dredges and then making a jump to trailing suction hopper dredges. Quite a difference when it comes to crewing them, hoppers require a fully licensed crew like any other ocean going SOLAS vessel compared to no credentials at all for CSD crew.
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A hopper dredge does not have mostly uncertificated “industrial workers” (welders, mechanics, arm operators, etc ?
Cutterhead and bucket dredges, yes. Hopper dredges are crewed 100% with MMC carrying seafarers in my experience. Although we did carry riding crews of mechanics and shipyard workers from time to time.
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Callan has a bunch of old Bean Dredging folks on their managerial board. They talk a big game and have produced several cutter suction dredges fairly quickly, but a newbuild hopper dredge is an entirely different animal! Our current newbuild delay proves that point several times over!
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Slickcam is correct, hopper dredges sail with a COI, and as such must have USCG licensed personnel. Now we can also carry Persons in Addition to Crew (if designated on the COI) but rarely do.
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It’s a damn shame, I worked on the Lindholm from 95-99 (it was called the Ouachita), then went back aboard for a visit 2 years ago. The dredge was completely repowered, all the old analog shit was replaced with a vessel management system, it was in better shape then when I got off it in 99!
Yeah people were surprised by that layup. The RN, not so much. I believe Lindholm was sold to a Bulgarian company. So she’ll keep working, but not in the states.