they were built on spec
anyone knows you need a couple of 250+kw gen sets for at anchor or alongside, never seen a vessel without them.
The batterys in OSV’s are for prevention of blackout when on DP, if you wanted to be alongside with a battery supplying 250kwh for a few days, it would be as big as your vessel
You can see here that I was right:
It’s an interesting thought. Shipyards here don’t really benefit that much from merchant ship orders. They concentrate on military vessels. At the same time, we have a lot of overrage vessels in our merchant fleet.
That is because there are almost no merchant ship orders because the yards are totally noncompetitive if the ship doesn’t have to be USA built.
It’s probably more based on the Navy being a constant customer who doesn’t bat an eye at cost over runs and outright price gouging. Why seek out business from the commercial sector where you will have to stay within a budget and actually produce a usable product when old Uncle Moneybags is willing to keep you fat and happy?
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So there is unmet demand for USA built ships, but no yard will take the orders???
American yards can and do take commercial orders but have become so used to getting a blank check when building for the government, are less likely to even attempt to build something on a budget. The Navy fills their order books so why bother?
I don’t dispute that American shipbuilding is less efficient than their foreign counterparts. Comically so. It’s just that even if the processes and efficiencies were on an even footing there would still be those pesky labor costs and safety standards. So the argument that they could ever compete with even a Korean yard let alone a Chinese one is laughable.
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Here is a link to a study from 1996 on the shipbuilding costs in USA vs. Northern Europe, which is most natural to compare: www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a451193.pdf
Of course some things have changed during over 20 years, but the relative material cost difference should be roughly the same. If anything the labour costs in Europe have probably gone up more than in the US.
PS> I doubt that safety rules and regulations in the US is any more stringent or costly than in NW Europe. (Or in Japan)
Hence why I mentioned Korea and China. I did not venture into this thread to get in the same old arguments with you.
I’ve been around long enough to remember when Kvaerner tried their hand at revitalizing the Philadelphia Shipyard which then became Aker Philadelphia and is now Philly Shipyard. Are they still on the Oslo stock exchange? They’ve built some ships at exhorbitant prices and who knows what the future holds. Probably a lot of jobless folks up on the Delaware.
I would have thought it more natural to compare US with NW Europe and Japan, but apparently not.
I have no inside information to offer, but 29% return on capital doesn’t sound too bad:
https://simplywall.st/stocks/no/capital-goods/ob-phly/philly-shipyard-shares/news/what-do-you-get-for-owning-philly-shipyard-asa-obphly/
Don’t know about the workers though:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/philadelphia-shipyard-struggles-to-survive-on-order-drought-1527779834
Maybe somebody else know more on the present situation??
You mean the yard Røkke has made a killing on?
Yes they are still at the stock exchange.
https://www.oslobors.no/markedsaktivitet/#/details/PHLY.OAX/overview
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There is a huge Jones Act market for small vessels: tugs, barges, dredges, yachts, fishing vessels, passenger boats, landing craft, ferries, and others.
I’d like to see European companies like Damen open US shipyards and start building their European stock models in the US for the Jones Act market.
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Damen is already there since 2016:
The ECO tugs for Alaskey is Damen design:
They are even on the Great Lakes:
I think Damen just has a sales office in Houston and provides some engineering support for shipyards and owners that want to build Damen designs.
Obviously, Chouest built its vessels in its own yard.
Young Bros. Is owned by Foss/TOTE/Saltchuk, but they did not build in the Foss shipyard. The Young Bros. Boat were build somewhere down south, maybe Conrad.
Damen does not have a US shipyard where it builds vessels. Nor does it inventory its stock designs for prompt sale as it does it Europe.
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