Comments
and/or
Inquiries
Welcomed
Shipbuilding Technologies in Canada
These pages give a quick overview of the shipbuilding industry in Canada. Click on the text below to skip to the topic of interest to you.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF SHIPBUILDING IN CANADA
The heyday of Canadian shipbuilding was in the years 1840 to the early 1880s, when wooden sailing ships ruled the waves. These years meant great opportunities for the maritime provinces and Quebec since they had the natural advantage of plentiful forest resources and a close connection to the large shipping industry in the United Kingdom.
In the peak shipbuilding years during the 1870s Canada produced 500 to 600 vessels per year, making her the fourth largest producer of ships in the world. By the late 1870s steel hulled ships propelled by steam engines were rapidly replacing the wooden sailing ships. Canada's timber was no longer required and our shipyards did not have easy access to steel resources (no steel was being produced in Canada) and had not adopted steel shipbuilding techniques. The industry quickly went into a severe decline.
During the First World War (1914-1918) the losses of merchant shipping to the German U-boats was keeping British yards so busy some of the new building work eventually spilled over to Canada. Canadian shipyards rose to the occasion and produced 41 steel hulled ships of over 1800 tons deadweight. The need for these ships ended with the war in 1918, but the Canadian government continued to support the industry for a time by ordering ships from its own yards for a new government owned merchant marine corporation called CGMM Ltd. By 1921 however CGMM ships were not competing well in the rapidly changing world shipping industry, and once again shipbuilding in Canada went into a slump. The industry struggled along mostly by doing ship repair work.
The Second World War (1939-1945) brought about one of the proudest accomplishments in Canadian manufacturing history. The shipyards in Canada turned from producing no new ocean going ships in 1939 to building 400 warships and an equal number of cargo vessels and tankers in the following six years, making her once again the fourth largest producer of ships in the world. By the end of the war Canada had the third largest navy in the world and was a significant maritime power.
After the Second World War the need to rebuild european industry meant strong demand for transatlantic shipping. European shipyards were not in a position to meet all of the demand and so Canadian yards remained active supplying merchant ships. As european industry rebuilt they incorporated new technology and methods into their shipyards, eventually becoming more competitive than Canadian yards who did not have the investment funds necessary to modernize quickly. The growth of international trade in the 1950s and 1960s meant ship orders were plentiful enough that shipyards in Canada continued to receive orders. Government subsidies and assistance programs as well as government orders for ships throughout the 1960s and 1970s helped the industry to modernize.
In more recent years orders for new ships from government departments and repair work has been the mainstay of the industry as foreign shipyards with lower labour costs, larger domestic markets and subsidization programs have made it difficult for Canadian yards to compete in the worldwide commercial market. Japan, South Korea and China currently dominate the market for new buildings.
CANADIAN SHIPYARDS TODAY
There are currently seven large shipyards in Canada capable of building ocean going ships and a large number of smaller yards doing ship repair work and producing small to medium sized vessels. The main shipyards in Canada today are located regionally on the East Coast, the West Coast , and the Great Lakes.
Halifax Shipyards Ltd., located in Halifax, Nova Scotia it is owned by Saint John Shipbuilding and includes the Dartmouth Marine Slips located across the harbour in Dartmouth.
Marystown Shipyard Ltd., in Marystown, Newfoundland
MIL Davie Shipbuilding, Lauzon, Quebec
Saint John Shipbuilding Ltd. of Saint John, New Brunswick
Port Weller Dry Docks - St. Catherines, Ontario, a division of Canadian Shipbuilding and Engineering Ltd.
Allied Shipbuilders, Vancouver, British Columbia
Vancouver Shipyards Co. Ltd., Vancouver, British Columbia
Shipbuilding and ship repair work in the canadian yards is supported and supplied by a several large naval architecture and marine engineering firms, marine surveyors, government agencies (particularly Transport Canada) and hundreds of varied marine equipment suppliers.
Today in Canada some major shipbuilding programs include:
- Allied Shipbuilders Ltd. of Vancouver with Naval Architects Robert W. Allan Ltd and Austal Ships of Sydney, Australia are building three fast ferries for BC Ferry Corporation's Vancouver to Vancouver Island route. The ferries are 1000 passenger, 250 car capacity ferries capable of 37 knots. The first ship will be delivered in early 1997.
- Saint John Shipbuilding Ltd. of Saint John, New Brunswick has recently completed the last of twelve 134 metre , 4800 tonne HALIFAX class patrol frigates for the navy. Three of the twelve vessels were built in Lauzon, Quebec by MIL Davie . The vessels are state of the art general purpose frigates intended to replace an older fleet of steam driven destroyer escorts built over 30 years ago. SJSL is now working on the design of several container ships to be built over the next 2-3 years.
- MIL Davie Ltd. has also recently completed an extensive mid-life refit of four TRIBAL class destroyers for the Canadian Navy. Work included cruise engine replacement, and the installation of an air defence missile system.
- Halifax Shipyards Limited of Halifax, Nova Scotia has a $750 million contract to produce twelve 55 metre, 960 tonne Maritime Coastal Defence Vessels (MCDV) for the Naval Reserves to replace various small vessels used in reserve training and to give Canada's Naval Reserves a new role in coastal defence operations.
- Marystown Shipyard in Marystown, Newfoundland completed a $65 million contract with Maersk in June 1996 to build two 85 metre offshore supply vessels which will be used in the Hibernia offshore oil field. They have also won a contract to build hull pontoons and vertical stability columns for an offshore drilling rig to be used in the Gulf of Mexico. More recently MSL has won a contract to build two 38m tugs for the Whiffen Head oil transshipment facility under construction near Arnold's Cove, NF.
- Hibernia Management and Development Corp. Bull Arm, Newfoundland has completed an offshore oil rig gravity based structure for the $5.4 billion Hibernia Oilfield development program which is scheduled to begin producing oil in December 1997.
Ships are built to satisfy a large number of different needs of the owners of the worlds' merchant and naval fleets, and those different needs result in some very different hull shapes and sizes, speed requirements, and propulsion types. Some of the more common vessel types include:
- Cargo Vessels - including bulk cargo, container vessels, roll on-roll off (RORO) vessels, reefer vessels (refrigerated cargo), ore carriers, lakers (used for transportation on the Great Lakes), paper carriers, liquid food product carriers (fruit juices, molasses)
- Tankers - crude oil carriers, very large crude carrier (VLCC) and ultra large crude carriers (ULCC), liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tankers, Oil/Bulk Ore carriers (OBO), chemical tankers, product tankers
- Passenger Vessels - cruise ships, car and passenger ferries, casino vessels, river boats, yachts
- Fishing Vessels - trawlers, seiners, factory ships
- Government Services - icebreakers, buoy tenders, search and rescue craft, fisheries patrol vessels, police and customs patrol vessels
- Research Vessels - hydrographic survey, seismic survey, oceanographic research
- Support Vessels - tugs, fire fighting vessels, cable layers, dredges, barges, heavy lift ships, floating cranes
- Offshore Oilfield Development Vessels - floating production, storage and offloading vessels (FPSO), shuttle tankers, offshore supply and standby vessels, anchor handling vessels, drill ships, semi-submersible oil rigs, jack-up oil rigs, GBS rigs, tension leg platforms
- Warships - aircraft carriers, battleships, amphibious assault ships, command and control ships, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, submarines, minesweepers, operational support ships, military sea lift ships, diving support vessels, patrol boats, navigation training vessels, range support vessels
These links will take you to see some vessels:
Canadian Navy Ships
http://www.marlant.halifax.dnd.ca/cdnnavy.html
Canadian Coast Guard Ships http://www.ncr.dfo.ca/gcc/vessels/vessels.htm
British Columbia Ferries http://bcferries.bc.ca/ferries/fleet.html
Canada Steamship Lines Cargo Ships http://www.marmus/csl/csl_fleet.html
US Coast Guard Icebreaker http://www.oz.net/~polarsea/DOCS/SHIPSPEC.HTM U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Sea http://www.oz.net/~polarsea/The Ship Design Process
In order to begin the design of a ship a naval architect must meet with the owners of the planned vessel and establish exactly what it is the owner wants his vessel to do. The naval architect is responsible for determining the size (length, breadth, depth), shape (hull form), power requirements, and general arrangement of decks and compartments. To do this he must have a very clear idea of what it is the owner wishes to do with his vessel. He will then produce concept designs based on the owners' needs, ideas from similar ship types that have already been built, and the incorporation of new technology which might make for a better ship.
Once the owner has selected a basic design he thinks best suits his needs, work starts on refining the basic design, estimating vessel costs and planning for the production of the ship. Naval architects refine the hull design and general arrangement while marine engineers, marine systems designers and production engineers work to design the systems which will turn the naval architects' hull into an operating ship. Engines are selected, propulsion systems designed, fuel, oil, water, electric power production systems, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, cargo handling, anchoring and mooring systems all must be designed or purchased to suit the vessel and its purpose.
Once a contract has been awarded to a shipyard to build the new ship, people in the design office (the naval architects and marine system designers) work to prepare more detailed production drawings. These drawings are used by the production department to plan how they will employ the hundreds of tradespeople working to turn those drawings into reality. The purchasing department begins "sourcing" equipment required for the ship, purchasing all the materials and equipment needed to fulfill the design requirements. Others work on financing arrangements to pay for the construction of the ship, and all the usual activities required to operate any organization the size of a shipyard.
The actual construction process consists of steel fabrication and outfitting. Steel must be cut in various shapes which will be welded together to form the hull, bulkheads, and decks of the ship. This is done by computer controlled cutting machines working from data produced at the naval architect's computer. Outfitting means the installation of all the pumps, piping, heat exchangers, motors, engines, generators, cabling, machinery and bridge control equipment, insulation, and everything else that goes into a ship.
The ship will be built in "units,"or blocks of the ship that will be built independently and then welded together to form the final product. By building the ship this way workers will have easier access to the interior of the ship, welding can be more easily carried out, the installation of equipment is simpler, in other words each unit can be "pre-outfitted" more quickly and with less effort than if the hull was completed first. This makes the ship quicker and less costly to produce, a very important consideration in the competitive shipbuilding industry.
The units are welded together to form sub-assemblies which are then lowered into a dry dock and welded to other subassemblies until the ship is complete. The size of the sub-assemblies is usually only limited by the capacity of the equipment used to transport them to the dock and lower them into place. Parts of the ship may even be built at other shipyards and floated on a barge to the lead shipyard for assembly.
Once all the units are together the ship is "floated up" in the dock and tugs will move it to an outfitting pier where the all the remaining work is finished. Hundreds of people are involved in the building of a ship; pipefitters, machinists, electricians, welders, joiners, draughtsmen, sheet metal workers, riggers, painters and others virtually swarm the dockyard when construction is underway. Companies from across Canada, and many from overseas, send people to install and "set-to-work" equipment the shipyard has purchased for the ship. Supervisors and quality assurance technicians are kept busy ensuring work proceeds according to the designs produced by the naval architects and engineers, and that the work is up to the required standards. It is a tremendous swirl of activity that results in a new ship that is a source of pride for the shipyard and excitement for the owners and the people who will work on board.
For questions or comments on this topic email palexander/martrans@gill.mi.mun.ca