The Stevens Towing Shipyard recently completed the dry docking of a cutter suction dredge at Yonges Island. The project required the majority of our workforce in the shipyard to work (2) 12 hour shifts and utilized roughly 70 personnel onboard the dredge. Trades collaborating included ABS ship fitters, welders, pipe fitters, pipe welders, electricians, UHP water blasters, sand blasters, crane operators, riggers, tank cleaners, scaffolding personnel, mechanics, outside machinists, and safety mangers.
Upon arrival, the initial focus was to remove the walking spud carriage which was picked with our Clyde 32, 150 Ton Floating Crane. The spud carriage was placed in our North Yard, and the structure was blasted for inspection. After inspection, the scope of the project was defined to include rebuilding the trunnion assembly, bogie assembly, spud clamp assembly, spud carrier longitudinal operating cylinder and respective clevis plates, spud carrier vertical cylinder, sheave pendant and containment well. With the spud carriage removed, the dredge was dry docked on our Railway III which has an 1,800 LT capacity. The dredge was blasted from bottom shell to the top of the 2nd deck using a combination of both UHP waterjet blasting and sand/slurry blasting. The house and ladder were sweet blasted and the main deck and hull of the dredge were blasted to a Commercial Blast standard.
In conjunction with the Blasting Department, our Pipe Shop tackled some major pipe replacement projects which included over 420′ of pipe ranging from 2″ to 26″.
The Hull Shop removed all of the fendering from the perimeter of the barge and worked through the ABS and USCG call outs. Call outs included replacing portions of side shell plate, internal structural angle, brackets, channel, and some vent containment throughout the vessel. Our customer requested major steel overhaul, repairs and improvements on the dredge house so our welders and fitters replaced portions of the main machinery space and engine room structure in line with the 26” discharge piping, where the heavy vibration had deteriorated the existing steel.
The Electrical Shop replaced roughly (30) outdated deck lights with Phoenix LED flood lights including the majority of the existing junction boxes and cabling. They also tested all alarms throughout the dredge and replaced portions of the outdated alarm panel with new Murphy panels.
The dredge was splashed after 45 days on Railway III and shifted to one of our floating docks to wrap up the topside work. Our Paint Department had her looking brand new on her departure date as she headed off to her next assignment. This dredge represents the largest vessel drydocked at the Stevens Shipyard to date and took the full effort of our entire Shipyard Team to complete.
