Canada's shipbuilding capability

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reildawg
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Canada's shipbuilding capability

Post by reildawg »

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/shipb ... -1.5751143

Serious question for folks in industry, what is Canada's shipbuilding capability really? From my brief time in school and offshore, I haven't really seen any recent Canadian built ships outside of the navy and the old coast guard vessels. Most news stories about shipyards in Canada are about them closing, not getting big contracts. From what I've seen, Canadian companies like BC ferries, Atlantic Towing, and most of the Laker companies buy foreign built ships (which says a lot about Irving shipyards to me, if they won't build their own boats), so what shipbuilding capabilities do we really have on our shores, and how do they stack up to other countries like Scandinavia, or Europe? Obviously we cannot stack up to Japan, China, or Korea. We obviously have dry docks and yards for repairs, overhauls, and inspections no, but do we still build commercial ships in this country? On that note, almost all of the vessels I have worked on did their major overhauls outside of Canada, where yard labour is cheaper.

Also, any Canadian shipyard stories welcome.
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JK
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Re: Canada's shipbuilding capability

Post by JK »

The Canadian shipbuilding industry really was devastated by the government's decision to pay down the deficit.
The last major shipbuilding of any kind was in the 80's with the frigate program, the very capable CCG medium icebreaking class and the Henry Larsen. When CG was taken out of Transport Canada and merged with DFO in 1995, the resulting chaos really impacted the CCG. The smaller light icebreakers were removed from service and operational priorities seemed to evolve and change.
The purse string tightening at a time when the shipyards probably should have been invested in, helped smaller facilities to get out of business rather unwillingly I'd say. So with a dearth of ship building, it became ship repair. The government ships can't go out of the country, so that was where the shipyards focus seemed to be. Why compete with foreign companies who can pay low wages.
Unfortunately that put Canada in the situation that the yards had to be rebuilt and modernized and trade training funding bumped up in the provinces for the government shipbuilding program, all of which took a couple of years. Ships are starting to come out. I think the next ones to be built in Vancouver is two JSS, then the Hudson replacement, then smaller multi-service ships capable of going into harbours and shallower areas. Then there is the Navy program in Halifax with 9 ships there, then maybe the frigate replacement(?) not sure about that.
The big polar icebreaking building is going to be interesting to watch. Canada hasn't has a large breaker built since the late 60's and the river class in the 70's into the 80s. Specialized steel, heavy plate will make fabrication different then what yards are used to.
Add to that, Canada now operates under Class Societies instead of TC, so everyone is still figuring out how that impacts things like design and welding.
If you look at the US, they use the war machine to put money into the country. Build more ships in house. I don't know how many commercial ships they build down there. The one icebreaker I am sort of aware of, was built in the GOM for towing an oil rig into the Arctic. That ship is tied up after Obama closed the Arctic to exploration and with the collapse of the oil industry . It's probably still tied up.

Anyway, that is what I have seen.
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