Pjwh12 wrote:Does anyone have an idea as to why the us fleet has not put in place a fleet renewal plan like CSL and Algoma ?
One isn't needed.
Adequate capacity exists with hulls fairly regularly made surplus or sold foreign as capacity declines to reflect customer demand, the hulls on the American side are in good condition thanks to operating in fresh water, and the fleet has been properly maintained for the most part.
And with upgrades like Interlake's repowers, they're nearly as efficient as new builds on the Canadian side at a fraction of the cost of building a new Jone's Act compliant vessel.
Why would Interlake for instance spend 5-6 times the money to construct a new build with capacity equal to the John Sherwin for an example, when the existing hull with decades of life left can yield nearly as efficient of a ship just by virtue of being repowered, repaired, and upgraded? Not hard to see why they're repowering rather than buying new.
I doubt we'll see significant new construction even in 15-20 years, when there's no major roadblock to something like the Wilfred Sykes of 20-30 years earlier being repowered in the next few years, yielding a ship fully capable of meeting the century mark if a policy of deferred maintenance isn't implemented.
Unless the lighter built high tensile steel of these 70's era hulls starts to let them down, I imagine we'll see the life of the US fleet from the 70's and early 80's be life extended with an eye towards taking them past 75 years of service.
Barring killing off the Jone's Act, there's just too great of savings at hand for this volatile industry to justify the luxury of a large scale fleet renewal plan, when the existing fleet can be kept in a state of good repair and be modernized.
[quote="Pjwh12"]Does anyone have an idea as to why the us fleet has not put in place a fleet renewal plan like CSL and Algoma ?[/quote]
One isn't needed.
Adequate capacity exists with hulls fairly regularly made surplus or sold foreign as capacity declines to reflect customer demand, the hulls on the American side are in good condition thanks to operating in fresh water, and the fleet has been properly maintained for the most part.
And with upgrades like Interlake's repowers, they're nearly as efficient as new builds on the Canadian side at a fraction of the cost of building a new Jone's Act compliant vessel.
Why would Interlake for instance spend 5-6 times the money to construct a new build with capacity equal to the John Sherwin for an example, when the existing hull with decades of life left can yield nearly as efficient of a ship just by virtue of being repowered, repaired, and upgraded? Not hard to see why they're repowering rather than buying new.
I doubt we'll see significant new construction even in 15-20 years, when there's no major roadblock to something like the Wilfred Sykes of 20-30 years earlier being repowered in the next few years, yielding a ship fully capable of meeting the century mark if a policy of deferred maintenance isn't implemented.
Unless the lighter built high tensile steel of these 70's era hulls starts to let them down, I imagine we'll see the life of the US fleet from the 70's and early 80's be life extended with an eye towards taking them past 75 years of service.
Barring killing off the Jone's Act, there's just too great of savings at hand for this volatile industry to justify the luxury of a large scale fleet renewal plan, when the existing fleet can be kept in a state of good repair and be modernized.