Science shipbuilding program gathers steam

Vessels built in pieces, assembled a bit like Lego

Steel is being pounded into shape for the first of the federal government’s offshore fisheries science vessels being built at Seaspan Shipyards.

The construction, signalling the long-awaited beginning of the Conservative government’s National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy at this yard, is akin to building with Lego. Parts of the vessel are in blocks at different locations in the yard; those pieces will eventually be brought together to form a 63-metre ship.

The offshore fisheries science vessel will be made of 41 such blocks, says Seaspan Shipyard president Brian Carter during a tour of the facilities.

“It’s much more efficient,” Carter says of the process and of the government’s shipbuilding strategy. “There’s a change in how shipbuilding is being done. We’ve gone from piecemeal projects to more of a manufacturing line.”

Seaspan was selected in 2011 by the government to build the non-combat vessels as part of the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy, or NSPS. It hopes to eventually construct 17 ships, including various science vessels, a Polar-class icebreaker for the Coast Guard and two Joint Support Ships for the Royal Canadian Navy.

Irving, on the East Coast, will build the navy’s new warships and Arctic/offshore patrol vessels.

So far, Seaspan has a contract for work on Joint Support Ship design and to buy equipment it will need for building the JSS, Carter said. An actual contract for the ships has still to be awarded.

But the procurement strategy, estimated to cost taxpayers $36 billion, continues to be dogged by controversy. Concerns have been raised by the Canadian military and auditor general Michael Ferguson about whether there will be enough money to finance the ambitious scheme.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau says that if elected he would pull Canada out of the U.S.-led F-35 stealth fighter program and select a less costly jet to replace the military’s CF-18s. The savings would be pumped into the shipbuilding program, which isn’t properly financed, the Liberals say.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has dismissed those concerns.

“All of our shipbuilders are up to their eyeballs in work because we have the largest shipbuilding program in history,” Harper said.

It’s near a shift change at the yard and about 50 workers are welding and doing other work on the science vessel. Another 120 employees at a nearby location are preparing for the eventual construction of the JSS in late 2016, Carter said.

The Vancouver yard employs around 600. When the $2.6 billion JSS project gets underway in earnest, that will increase to 1,300. Another 800 are in the company’s yard in Victoria. That facility will do some of the finishing work for the ships.