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Started By
Message
1
Posted on 4/3/25 at 9:23 am to F1y0n7h3W4LL
Shipbuilding is a dirty business. There's no reasonable way to get around it. Short of totally enclosed massive construction areas which would have to include covered dry dock -usable connected waterway, there's not much you can do. The environmental issues are real and there's no economically viable way to navigate those. We are already too expensive and that would make it exponentially worse. De-regulation is the only way we get globally competitive again, and very few people REALLY want that.
It's fun to gripe about us not being first place here, but it's not fun to talk about the realities of why we aren't. It's nothing to do with capability. We are technically more capable than anyone else in the world. Nobody wants competitive shipyards or steel mills anywhere near their homes. When China and Korea can use high VOC paint right out in the wide arse open, make as much noise as they want, work as high off the ground as they want etc etc etc there's not much you can do.
It's fun to gripe about us not being first place here, but it's not fun to talk about the realities of why we aren't. It's nothing to do with capability. We are technically more capable than anyone else in the world. Nobody wants competitive shipyards or steel mills anywhere near their homes. When China and Korea can use high VOC paint right out in the wide arse open, make as much noise as they want, work as high off the ground as they want etc etc etc there's not much you can do.
Posted on 4/3/25 at 9:34 am to Pfft
quote:
ABS - always billing someone
Yes, they bill for every little thing. Other Class societies charge much less and less often. In the US there are other Class societies that can provide the same services for a lot less but people don’t know or are to scared to switch.
I’ve heard some folks say they want to support the US, but it seems like 90% of ABS surveyors are here on green cards.
Posted on 4/3/25 at 9:39 am to DownshiftAndFloorIt
quote:
There's some commercial business out there still. We still need brown water boats, port to port blue water boats, etc. If not for the Jones act though, none of those boats would be built here. It just costs too damned much here, for the reasons previously listed (environmental, labor, land, etc).
I had read previously we use a lot of capital and labor on building the navy vessels.
Most of our collective energy is focused on that. And I believe they were saying we basically don't build the giant shipping vessels. Costs and all that jazz.
Posted on 4/3/25 at 9:40 am to SeaBass23
quote:
Other Class societies charge much less and less often. In the US there are other Class societies that can provide the same services for a lot less but people don’t know or are to scared to switch.
ABS seems to have forgotten that they are a service provider, just like every other supplier in the industry. It's going to bite them eventually.
Posted on 4/3/25 at 9:56 am to dgnx6
quote:
I had read previously we use a lot of capital and labor on building the navy vessels.
Most of our collective energy is focused on that
Yea, because that's where the money is if you can pull off the build.
quote:
And I believe they were saying we basically don't build the giant shipping vessels. Costs and all that jazz.
See above. We have the capacity and capability here to build container ships right now but they aren't port-to-port in the US, so they don't have to be US flagged, so they don't have to be built here, so they aren't.
Container ships are basically gigantic dump trucks with huge fuel tanks and one big arse engine. We could easily build them here. The reality is they are damned cheap to build in Korea and China and would probably cost 5x if not more to build in the US. The price disparity is that significant and their infrastructure is built for it. Hyundai Heavy spits out container ships faster than we could get the paperwork straight to build them over here.
Posted on 4/3/25 at 11:36 am to DownshiftAndFloorIt
quote:
Its long been my opinion that the Navy is the primary reason we maintain status in the world. Piracy has been effectively non-existant for decades now, largely because our Navy is not to be fricked with.
The Navy is to an extent in the business of keeping our shipbuilding industry healthy. They could probably use some budget trim but this is one area I feel the exorbitant costs are justified to an extent. As long as our Navy is peerless in the world, the dollar remains the world's standard currency.
You ain't wrong. Flying planes off a boat in the dark during a damned storm with big waves is pretty much the same thing as landing on the moon LOL...when other nations see that they have to ask WTF?????
There was movie once starring John Candy (Canadian Bacon I think) where basically the USSR decided it wanted no part of being a superpower and the US needed an enemy so the president chose Canada. At one point the president (Alan Alda??? I think) is chasing a Russian leader down the driveway of the embassy begging them to come back and the Russian said "no no, you won....you won...." or something to that effect. I have often wondered if anyone else in the world wants to take the US's place in the world. I know they will pretend like they do but what would they gain? Lets say China. They have a metric shite ton of domestic issues they are going to have to face eventually....do they really want to be the parents of the rest of the world? Russia for certain ain't interested....and are unable anyway, having proven beyond doubt that as far as Europe or Asia goes Russia is basically Mississippi....
The US is a lot like Don King who once said "If Don King did not exist y'all would have to create Don King". I think that is true of the US....if we started backing off our parental duties the rest of the world would fricking beg us on hands and knees to come back LOL...why wouldn't they? Our hegemony allows them to provide cool shite to their citizens, make their ogliarchs wealthy and stay in power....why would anyone want to upset that deal????
Posted on 4/3/25 at 7:47 pm to Pfft
quote:
stupid regulations
100%, we designing some CG, waaaayyyyyy over engineered for what it is.
Posted on 4/3/25 at 7:53 pm to Btrtigerfan
quote:
Live oak ain't good for anything but moss and shade.
Burns in my wood burning stove pretty well, all 8 times i use it per florida winter.
Posted on 4/3/25 at 8:17 pm to deeprig9
quote:
Can't cut down the Live Oaks anymore like the old days. It was great timber for ship building.
Not really. Live oaks are in the red oak family, which have a diffuse and porous grain structure. Any ship built with timbers from the red oak family will leak like a sieve.
Much more highly preferred are white oaks, which have a solid grain structure. They are also generally much more dense and strong, and do not leak water naturally. If you look at oak boards or timbers from the end grain, you can see exactly what I am talking about.
England virtually decimated their forests in the 1500/1600's building ships out of their white oak forests. It got to the point where white oaks were "reserved for the Crown" and red/black oaks were used instead for buildings.
Posted on 4/3/25 at 8:41 pm to Tarps99
quote:
They have been busy building cutters for the Coasties since the mid 1980’s when Vice President Bush visited Lockport.
Boysie had photos up in the office with him on Airforce One and he attended the Bush family's annual Christmas party at their rance.
quote:
then they retrofitted some of those vessels to make them longer and refurbish some of the electronics. The government sued over the retrofit because some the welds were bad making the vessels unseaworthy. But Bollinger still managed to get another newer larger class of cutters with new tech needed after 9/11.
The retrofit was after 9-11 when the CG got that huge infusion of money. Many doubted that the extension of those boats would even work from the beginning. I think there was a dustup because they took the first one out on sea trial during a tropical storm and of course caused cracks in the hull.
That whole situation with those boats and the new ones was a huge cluster frick. The coasties had no experience anymore with procurement/design, etc so all of it was managed by Northrop Grumman and another contractor(Raytheon?). Some boats were built by Bollinger and some by Ingalls(Northrop Grumman) So much shite went political and the designs were all kind of messed up with late changes, etc. I think they ended up scrapping the whole program and starting over.
Posted on 4/3/25 at 9:53 pm to iglass
Interestingly, the US Navy was so interested in Live Oaks for shipbuilding that President John Quincy Adams authorized the purchase of land here in NWFL that contained live oaks. It is now the Naval Like Oaks Reservation.
Naval Live Oaks
Naval Live Oaks
Posted on 4/3/25 at 11:47 pm to Pfft
quote:
ABS - always billing someone 100's and 100's of engineers on each project. Billing hours and causing delays. Over engineering due to stupid regulations. I think it cost more to design and engineer a vessel in the USA than it does for all the materials to construct it.
I hear ya and it can be frustrating. Yet, start running late from a healthy tropical storm or hurricane in 20-30 foot seas and you’ll be glad your ship was built and certified to spec.
Construction plans for an ABS or DNV certified 300 - 350 foot offshore supply or light construction DP boat cost $5 to $10 million. I’d guess most of the excess inspection work comes from 1) shipyard did not build to plan & 2) change orders.
They are complicated beasts and I’d want to ride one certified by a skilled Class society. Obtaining the Coast Guard COI is another pain in the arse, but necessary. You’re not going anywhere without it.
Posted on 4/4/25 at 6:33 am to notiger1997
You should’ve seen the pics in his house……Boysie knows a few folks;)
Posted on 4/4/25 at 7:30 am to UltimaParadox
quote:Kinda sounds like a bad deal to be honest
physically demanding job for long hours with low pay.
Posted on 4/4/25 at 7:30 am to UltimaParadox
quote:
They are having trouble finding workers willing to work a physically demanding job for long hours with low pay.
Huh, with a GED making double what plant baws were in the 1970's.
Posted on 4/4/25 at 7:33 am to Btrtigerfan
quote:
Live oak ain't good for anything but moss and shade.
Better than a water oak baw
Posted on 4/4/25 at 8:00 am to Darth_Vader
Several posters have mentioned subsidies. Yes, traditional shipyards were expensive to build and required a predictable flow of government contracts to survive. Cheaper-to-operate yards on the Gulf coast survived due to a combination of gov contracts and offshore service vessel demand. But, the capability of such facilities is limited.
I recently read that Trump admin is buying 4 icebreakers from Finland and only have 1 made in US by Bollinger which I guess is really Chouest.
I recently read that Trump admin is buying 4 icebreakers from Finland and only have 1 made in US by Bollinger which I guess is really Chouest.
This post was edited on 4/4/25 at 8:04 am
Posted on 4/4/25 at 8:08 am to Tree_Fall
quote:
I recently read that Trump admin is buying 4 icebreakers from Finland and only have 1 made in US by Bollinger
Oh yea and the Euro bros have been talking shite about it on linkedin like mad. I saw an article yesterday that was basically "Why the US Can't Build Ships like We Can."
Shameful for Trump to buy European built vessels in the midst of this whole buy american push. We have lots of shipyards here who could easily handle the builds and the industry needs the contracts here.
Posted on 4/4/25 at 8:21 am to DownshiftAndFloorIt
Is oil based paint really that big of a deal?
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