Eastern Shipbuilding Group, Inc. reposted this
"Many in Washington are justifiably skeptical of the U.S.’s ability to catch up to China’s investment in their shipbuilding industrial base as China does not operate on a level playing field. I personally refuse to accept this narrative," writes Joey D'Isernia, CEO and chairman of Eastern Shipbuilding Group, Inc. "The bottom line is that the United States cannot afford to let our shipbuilding fall further behind, we are the leader of the free-world, and we must maintain our maritime dominance. I firmly believe that Tier 2 shipyards have the capacity, talent, and infrastructure to augment our Tier 1 shipyards if the proper initiatives are put into place." #shipbuilding #maritime #shipsandshipping #nationalsecurity #navy #coastguard
Good article. Some observations: 1. I just attempted, without success, to find a list of Tier 2 shipyards. I think they need to raise their visibility. 2. There are a lot of ships out there that carry everything from coal to grain to people not built by GD or HII, so the capability is there. 3. I'm not sure the typical Tier 2 shipyard wants to spend their time and money doing perceived onerous shipbuilding contracts with Navy. What is their incentive to enter this market?
This is 100 percent spot on, MANY problems in US construction of large commercial ships are solved by series production. An intermittent JA ship or two or the occasional flight of NAVY / USCG construction won't do it. Competitive US deep-sea commercial shipbuilding is on the comeback, it will be led by patent(s) on better, not bigger and kick-ass, can-do spirit of Tier 2 yards that never fell into the 100 percent DOD swamp.
Har van der Poel
2mo
Get the Jones act out of the way first, so your yards will have to compete with foreign yards. A very tough time will follow, loads of yards with substandard equipment, facilities and personnel will go under, but in the end the survivors are vibrantley alive. Oh, also kick out the lawyers from topmanagement positions. Just a thought.
John Walls
2mo
Joey, well said.
Rich Merhige
2mo
I agree!
CEO @ Eureka Naval Craft | Defense, Maritime, Energy Solutions | Company Advisor | Innovation Enabler
2moThe employment of Tier 2 shipyards to counter China is great, however, provided we (USA) have corespondingly appropriate vessel designs which are optimized for production in these U.S. Tier 2 shipyards. Suggest this means taking a page from the past and looking to naval defense vessels where simplicity and quantity were a winning a quality all their own. In WWII the USA was the arsenal of democracy not because of expensive wonder weapons, but rather because we could out produce our enemies, i.e. PT Boats, Liberty Ships, T2 Tankers, LSTs, LCVPs (Higgins Boats), etc. Perhaps the USA should look for modern analogies to these vessels with some added twists therein to reduce their manning needs in the face of a smaller number of persons needed to operate such a vast fleet of vessels. This means embracing solutions that can unlock reduced manning and zero physical manning on vessels.