New Canadian Shipbuilding Strategy

[Pat in Halifax]

going out on a limb here!
Maybe we should look at how people do things, in real life:
a.  when the cost of repairs to our old clunker car is consistently exceeding the price of  a car payment for a new or gently used one.  and
b.  as a novice or semi-skilled handyman it is easier to work overtime and pay a professional over the hours of mistakes and aggravation to get a job done. Not to mention the waiting and unanticipated expenses.

So we need to save some cash and either buy used (there were plenty of good deals recently and still are available) or buy something off the rack over a sub-standard unproven Canadian Made option. You may never convince the providers to adopt a value long term commitment.  We don't need to buy a shoddy Canadian suit!
Like the land vehicles urban legend states the US was running a batch of HUMMERS and asked: Do you want use to extend the run for you?"
Canadians are buying KIA and Hyundai over Ford and GM so maybe we need one quick purchase of ships to fill the gap rather than waiting for the clowns to stumble through. In Irving. Maybe send a contingent to South Korea to see how it can be done without gouging the citizens of Canada.

You forgot the third option here as did many. I think you need to understand the purpose of this (hopefully) inaugural stage of NSPS. Your last option would be to take an auto mechanics course because you want to compete on the local market for business. It's the old, give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. We are 'starting up' an industry that quite frankly, has been unsustainable in the past. Should we have a history as a shipbuilding nation already: (in my opinion) you are damn right we should.  Will NSPS work; give us ships, employ a skilled workforce, develop infrastructure to feed a mighty industry, gain respect from the major players in the industry? Let me just say that if some of the people commenting here were on any of the Board(s) of Directors or working in Directorates responsible for these projects; NO! It is easy for us to sit in our recliners in our living rooms with a hot mug of something staring at the fireplace pondering everything that is wrong with the NSPS. I don't know if it will work but what I do know is that if it does, 10 years from now someone in another developed country will be saying something like "Why is our government spending all that R&D money when the RCN has a proven design for $ XX?"
My Sunday morning rant,

Pat

 

[AirDet]

Pat, I believe that is the intent. I certainly hope it works because it would be fantastic for our country.

However, like any other industry, if you can't get your costs under control your product will not be financially feasible. The current trend on our various ship programs show this is a major challenge for industry. If the costs and timelines could be reigned in the NSBS would have a chance of establishing us as a real alternative to German and Korean ship yards.

As someone who has spent years onboard ships designed and built in Canada, I can tell you we have the ability to build world-class warships.

 

[Edward Campbell]

In the late 1980/early 90s, when the Halifax class patrol frigates were brand spanking new and as modern and as good, maybe better, than anything else in the world we sent two of them off long international cruises ~ very, very thinly disguised sales missions: lots of exotic ports in warm countries that don't build their own ships, lots of cocktail parties on the hanger deck - naval officers know all about these - and lots of tours by local military and political brass.

How many Canadian built frigates do you see in service in other countries?

Our goodwill cruises were followed, very shortly by similar visits by our good friends and allies from Britain, France, Germany and the USA, amongst others. They came with less capable ships, with far inferior machinery and communication control systems but with much, much bigger, better 'offers' (read bribes, sometimes) and more political 'clout' (just foreign policy pressure in other cases) and they sold ships. They always came with fewer conditions and restrictions.

 

[jollyjacktar]

In the late 1980/early 90s, when the Halifax class patrol frigates were brand spanking new and as modern and as good, maybe better, than anything else in the world we sent two of them off long international cruises ~ very, very thinly disguised sales missions: lots of exotic ports in warm countries that don't build their own ships, lots of cocktail parties on the hanger deck - naval officers know all about these - and lots of tours by local military and political brass.

How many Canadian built frigates do you see in service in other countries?

Our goodwill cruises were followed, very shortly by similar visits by our good friends and allies from Britain, France, Germany and the USA, amongst others. They came with less capable ships, with far inferior machinery and communication control systems but with much, much bigger, better 'offers' (read bribes, sometimes) and more political 'clout' (just foreign policy pressure in other cases) and they sold ships. They always came with fewer conditions and restrictions.

Bang on again.  They do desire to get other work, but as with the new helicopters, we'll be the only country using these new ships.  Paul Hellyer also thought the world would be beating down our door after unification for info on how to follow suit.  Same result.  Lots of money wasted for the end product quality/overall satisfaction.  My  :2c:

 

[Navy_Pete]

Don't forget the team that built the frigates went on to build the type 45s for the RN.  They took the modular build one step further and built it at four different yards, then assembled them in the main yard in Glasgow (where they built one of the modules).

I'm wondering if building an entirely new batch of frigates would have been cheaper then FELEX?  That would have avoided all the legacy issues with old cabling etc and we wouldn't be left with a brand new combat suite on a 25 year old hull structure.

280s hulls are on their last legs, and they are built with thicker steel and 1960 standards for overengineering everything.  CPFs are built in the finitie element analysis era where they model the failure point, add a safety factor, and that's all you get.  Guessing there will be major cracking seen on the primary hull in the next 5-10 years.

 

[Tibbson]

Bang on again.  They do desire to get other work, but as with the new helicopters, we'll be the only country using these new ships.  Paul Hellyer also thought the world would be beating down our door after unification for info on how to follow suit.  Same result.  Lots of money wasted for the end product quality/overall satisfaction.  My  :2c:

Hellyer should know.  He had insider info from the aliens after all. 

 

[FSTO]

Don't forget the team that built the frigates went on to build the type 45s for the RN.  They took the modular build one step further and built it at four different yards, then assembled them in the main yard in Glasgow (where they built one of the modules).

I'm wondering if building an entirely new batch of frigates would have been cheaper then FELEX? That would have avoided all the legacy issues with old cabling etc and we wouldn't be left with a brand new combat suite on a 25 year old hull structure.

280s hulls are on their last legs, and they are built with thicker steel and 1960 standards for overengineering everything.  CPFs are built in the finitie element analysis era where they model the failure point, add a safety factor, and that's all you get.  Guessing there will be major cracking seen on the primary hull in the next 5-10 years.

I am a firm believer in this idea. Use them for 25 years and at 20 start building new ones. I do not think it is cost effective to do a mid life refit anymore.

 

[AirDet]

I am a firm believer in this idea. Use them for 25 years and at 20 start building new ones. I do not think it is cost effective to do a mid life refit anymore.

Not only that but we also lose the ability to build new ones... just like the boat we're n now.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Bang on again.  They do desire to get other work, but as with the new helicopters, we'll be the only country using these new ships.  Paul Hellyer also thought the world would be beating down our door after unification for info on how to follow suit.  Same result.  Lots of money wasted for the end product quality/overall satisfaction.  My  :2c:

I can't believe you would say such things about unification on this forum!  It's a success just ask its avid defenders on this forum!

 

[Colin Parkinson]

http://www.nsnews.com/news/heavy-lift-at-north-vancouver-s-seaspan-shipyard-1.942372 (picture on link)

Look up. Look way, way up.

There's a blue behemoth on the North Vancouver waterfront - Seaspan's massive new gantry crane, which this week became the most visible part of the shipyard's $200 million modernization project.

"There were a lot of high fives around here today," said Brian Carter, president of Vancouver Shipyards on Wednesday. "It represents a significant milestone."

The crane, which can lift 300 tonnes, was shipped from China in three pieces and erected on the east side of the Vancouver Shipyards site this week.

The rectangular-shaped crane stands 80 metres tall and runs on rails within the shipyard site.

While the final structural piece of the crane - the main horizontal girder - was lifted into place over several hours on Wednesday, it will still take several more months to install the cables, hydraulics and other systems to get the crane ready for work.

The crane will do the heavy lifting when the shipyard starts building vessels under the federal government's $8 billion National Shipbuilding Program this fall. Ships will be built in separate pieces before the parts are moved into place by the crane for final assembly.

Once it is operational, the gantry crane will be the largest of its type in Canada, said Brian Carter, president of Vancouver Shipyards. The total cost of the crane, installed, is between $15 million and $20 million.

Carter said there has been plenty of interest in the crane as it went up this week.

"You can see this thing from a long way," he said. "People understand what it represents, which is economic interest on the North Shore."

Seaspan will officially name the new crane later this spring when it chooses a winner from among 228 entries submitted by North Shore students from grades 4 to 7. In order to erect the gantry crane, an even taller, stronger crane had to be brought to the Vancouver Shipyards site to lift the pieces into place.

That crane - a large crawler crane with a 115- metre long boom and capacity to lift 1,350 tonnes - was shipped from Russia by the company contracted to get the gantry crane up and running. The crawler crane itself was put together from 80 truckloads of parts, said Carter.

At a height about 35 stories, it's been attracting quite a lot of attention on the North Vancouver waterfront, he said. "It's the tallest thing on the North Shore."

That crane will be taken down when its work is finished.

Work on the shipyard's modernization project is about 75 per cent complete, said Carter, and is on track to be finished by the end of October this year. It includes construction of four new buildings on the site.

Seaspan will begin working on the federal shipbuilding program this fall, with construction of an offshore fisheries science vessel.

That project is scheduled to start in October and take about 18 months. Seaspan will build three fisheries science ships and an oceanographic vessel before starting work on the two joint support ships for the navy and polar icebreaker sometime between late 2016 and 2017. Those ships will be the biggest ships ever built in western Canada.

The workforce at Seaspan is expected to grow to about 1,000 at that time, said Carter.

Last fall, the federal government also announced plans to build an additional 10 Coast Guard vessels at Seaspan, worth over $3 billion.

© North Shore News
- See more at: http://www.nsnews.com/news/heavy-lift-at-north-vancouver-s-seaspan-shipyard-1.942372#sthash.skDLq5dp.dpuf

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Was just discussing with a Malaysian Captain how long would it take to build a LNG tanker )Seri "A" - Class, 5 ships (417,388 DWT) )

He replied approx. 18 months......

I said: "I don't think we could write the Briefing note in that time period."  :'(

 

[MarkOttawa]

And then how many years for the Memorandum to Cabinet ?

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The girl who got to name the crane is a classmate of my oldest daughter, they all got to the name ceremony. My daughter thought the whole thing very cool! Wish I could have gone!

Seaspan's massive new addition to the North Vancouver waterfront got some heavy lifting this week from a Boundary elementary school student.

Ella Tinto, 9, christened the newly assembled gantry crane "Hiyí Skwáyel" - pronounced hee-yay sk-why-el and meaning "Big Blue" in the Squamish language - at a ceremony attended by her Grade 3/4 class on Wednesday at the North Vancouver shipyard.

Ella's name was chosen from more than 200 submissions from North Vancouver elementary school students in grades 4 to 7 who took up the challenge of coming up with a suitable name for the North Shore's most notable new landmark.

Suggestions ranged from potentially copyrightchallenging "Captain Hook" to the more prosaic "Kevin," as well as "Ichabod Crane," "Seaspan Goliath," "The Megalodon" (after a prehistoric shark) and even "Sha-Crane-O'Neal."

Over half a dozen students suggested the name "Big Blue," said Jeff Taylor, spokesman for Seaspan, but Ella was the only one who suggested the Squamish language translation.

The final selection was made through a vote of Seaspan's employees.

On Wednesday, Ella got to see her suggestion written large on the side of the crane, as well as ride up to near the top of the crane in a scissor lift with her dad - Seaspan employee Tony Tinto - and company officials.

The new gantry crane can lift 300 tonnes and stands 80 metres tall. Once it's operational - later this summer - the gantry crane will be the largest of its type in Canada.

The crane will do the heavy lifting when the shipyard starts building vessels under the federal government's $8 billion National Shipbuilding Program this fall.

"It really is the centrepiece of all the improvements we've been doing over the past two years," said Taylor.

As part of Wednesday's events, Seaspan presented a cheque for $5,000 to the North Vancouver School District. Ella Tinto also won an iPad air for her winning suggestion.

© North Shore News
- See more at: http://www.nsnews.com/news/north-vancouver-gantry-crane-named-1.1072366#sthash.Hxrw0AdM.dpuf

 

[The Bread Guy]

Meanwhile, the sausage machine behind the scenes grinds on ....

.... The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is to request that interested companies provide feedback and recommendations by way of written response to the questions posed within.  The questions posed are regarding a potential solicitation for the provision of independent shipbuilding and ship-design review and advisory services to Canada's National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS).

Canada has identified the need for independent shipbuilding and ship-design review and advisory services in support of the ongoing management of the NSPS, in the form of in-depth knowledge of the industry, its drivers, its techniques, and its strategies.  Canada envisions the need for specialized and varied engineering, naval architecture, and technical inspection services (the latter for inspection and acceptance work during ship construction) ....

From the attached RFI document:

.... This RFI is neither a call for tender nor a Request for Proposal (RFP) ....

 

[Edward Campbell]

I remain worried about our (Canada's) so called strategies: the RCN has a strategy, and I applaud the admirals for enunciating it; the Government of Canada has a strategy, too - the Canada First Defence Strategy which is, we are told, under revision; and we have a shipbuilding strategy. My worry is almost all financial. I am convinced that the money available in the current Canada First Defence Strategy makes the RCN's strategy, its plans and requirements, irrelevant by making it unaffordable. I am concerned that the shipbuilding strategy is, in fact, a jobs plan focused on spending a fixed amount of money in selected regions without really worrying about what goes into the water.

My suspicion is that the admirals wrote their strategy in fiscally rosy times, when it appeared that the Government of Canada had launched itself on a long-term plan to rebuild the Canadian Armed Forces: Sep 2008 changed everything ... at least as much as 9/11 2001 did. The admirals' (and generals') thinking needs to have changed with it ... I'm guessing it is changing, now, but I think it's a bit late.

I also suspect that factions in the Conservative Party and in the Public Service of Canada who oppose (much?, most?) discretionary spending, including defence spending, on a mix of sound economic and/or ideological grounds, have gained control of the government agenda. 

 

[Kirkhill]

I don't have a problem with multiple incompatible strategies and budgets.

I do have a problem with the manner in which the gaps are addressed. 

The process for resolving the inconsistencies is well defined.  It involves going back, taking another look with the new information, deciding on a course of action and then acting.  Pace Col Boyd.

In the NSPS case Boyd's OODA loop is clearly evident in a well defined Pugh's wheel which run's the AOPS through 6 contracted OODA loops to achieve an end state.

Boyd and Pugh knew what they were on about.  The same logic they applied to problem solving is applicable to the discussion of CFDS, NSPS, and Naval Strategy.

We should not expect to hit the target with the first shot.  We should expect to miss, adjust, fire, repeat.

My concern with our process is two-fold.

It seems as if we expect perfection on every attempt.  That can't happen.

It also seems, perhaps as a result of expecting perfection, we are unprepared to make adjustments in a timely fashion.

We have got to speed up the rate at which we conduct the unavoidable iterations necessary to achieve our targets.

And we have got to get used to spending smaller amounts of planning dollars more frequently rather than a single massive expenditure once in a blue moon.

FWIW

Edit to add graphic attachments.

 

[AlexanderM]

This article indicates that the Iver Class could be in our future, which in my opinion would be a good choice.  I realize the article is from last year but I like the ship.

http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2013/11/13/the_future_of_canadas_navy_106956.html

 

[YZT580]

Those two Mistrals just became available: one for immediate delivery.  France has temporarily suspended the contract. 

 

[CougarKing]

Those two Mistrals just became available: one for immediate delivery.  France has temporarily suspended the contract.

As stated in both the other two threads that mentioned the Mistrals, it's only a temporary halting of the delivery of the first ship, Vladivostok, till November. The 2nd one, Sevastopol, will still be delivered next year.

 

[MilEME09]

http://www.canadiandefencereview.com/news.php/news/1564

Irving Installs Final Steel Frame on NSPS Facility

On September 3, 2014, the Government of Canada and Irving Shipbuilding marked the installation of the final piece of steel frame for the Assembly and Ultra Hall Production facility that will produce the Navy’s newest combat fleet starting in September 2015. The Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada and the Honourable Peter MacKay, Attorney General and Minister of Justice of Canada and Minister Responsible for Nova Scotia joined Irving Shipbuilding’s executive team and provincial and municipal leaders to celebrate this important National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS) milestone.

“The Government of Canada congratulates Irving Shipbuilding on the important progress being made on this facility. Through our Government's commitment to providing state of the art equipment for our men and women in uniform, we are providing jobs and economic opportunities for families across the province,” said Peter MacKay, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and Minister Responsible for Nova Scotia. “As Nova Scotians, we can be proud of the pivotal role our province is playing in our country's National Shipbuilding Strategy.”

“We’re extremely pleased with the progress on our facilities and are confident we’ll be ready to start building in September of next year,” said Kevin McCoy, President, Irving Shipbuilding. “We expect our buildings to be weather tight by the end of this year, when we’ll shift our focus to the interior and the incredible amount of work left to make them production-ready. The men and women of Irving Shipbuilding certainly can’t wait to get started.”

Irving Shipbuilding has committed more than $310M in Canada to date in contracts, procurement, goods and services related to the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS), including both the Yard Modernization program and the work underway on the AOPS Definition Contract. A full 47%, or $146M, of that commitment has been made in Nova Scotia, engaging companies owned or operating in the province in our supply chain. This commitment has created more than 1,500 full time equivalent (FTE) positions in Nova Scotia with the company, with suppliers and with their direct suppliers and $75M in employment income. In addition, it has generated $21M in local, provincial and federal taxes paid, as well as $56M in consumer spending over a two-year period (see Note).

Across Canada, the NSPS commitment to date has boosted Canadian gross domestic product (GDP) by $255M, created more than 3,000 full time equivalent (FTE) positions across Canada (direct and indirect) and generated $187M worth of employment income in the country over a two-year period. It has also generated more than $139M worth of consumer spending and approximately $63M worth of taxes for federal, provincial and local governments.

Note - From the economic impact assessment prepared by Jupia Consultants Inc. using the following methodology: Direct and indirect full time equivalent employment, employment income, gross domestic product (GDP) and other indirect taxes are derived using Statistics Canada I/O tables for Nova Scotia and for the national economy. Consumer spending and taxes generated estimates are derived using Statistics Canada's Survey of Household Spending for 2011 (CANSIM Table 203-002) and other sources.