HI Superferry: CNO comments on HSF

[Editor's note: CNO is the Chief of Naval Operations. He is the highest ranking U.S. Naval Officer, usually a 4 or 5 star Admiral and on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.]

There are so many posts I could put up right now, but this is the one that caught my eye today. It is an article from the current Navy Times. Navy Times calls the Alakai a "trimaran." It is not, it is a catamaran, if it were a trimaran, it might be more sound. Anyway here is the article:

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/03/navy_roughead_smallercrews_032508w/

CNO: Reducing crew sizes a top priority
By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Mar 25, 2008

"...In the case of one ship the Navy is confident it wants — the aluminum-hulled trimaran that General Dynamics and shipbuilder Austal are offering as LCS 2 — Roughead said he remains a believer in the ship’s novel design and materials, even after yard problems and problems with an earlier civilian variant on the design.
The Navy acknowledged in February that some transverse support beams under the LCS 2’s flight deck had bowed in the shipyard, and that the Navy and Austal would review the cost and possible delays involved with repairs. And another aluminum trimaran built by Austal, the Hawaii Superferry, stopped service until April 22 and is laid up in a shipyard with hull cracks near its auxiliary rudders, the Honolulu Advertiser reported.
Roughead said he didn’t think it was clear yet what had caused the Superferry to stop service, nor that it portended any problems for the Navy’s purchase.
'I’ve heard it’s everything from discomfort caused by the weather to the fact that they’ve had some mechanical glitches, I don’t have the details on it. I do believe in what I’ve seen in LCS 2, a ship that I think a very exciting design for the Navy, and I’m anxious to get it to sea and put it through its paces.'"

Also, there is a blogger named Springboard who has had a few interesting entries recently related to all of this. They are worth reading:

http://springboarder.blogspot.com/2008/03/naval-arms-race-trinidad-and-tobago-buy.html

http://springboarder.blogspot.com/2007/10/hawaii-superferry-john-lehman-takes.html

http://springboarder.blogspot.com/2008/02/jhsv-its-austalbath-ironworks-catfight.html

A researcher/writer asked me about the following grant recently. The dollar figure of the grant is interesting because it correlates closely to what the expected annual losses would have been if commercial operations had continued uninterrupted for a year at what the average ridership levels had been.

From: http://www.defenselink.mil/contracts/contract.aspx?contractid=3673

"Austal USA, Mobile, Ala., is being awarded a $33,710,000 firm-fixed-price contract for infrastructure improvements to the Austal Shipyard in Mobile, Ala. Contracted improvements at Austal USA are one of a series of contracts with Gulf Coast shipbuilders awarded under Section 2203 of Public Law 109-234, Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Defense, The Global War on Terror and Hurricane Recovery 2006. This contract is for construction of a Modular Manufacturing Facility at Austal USA’s Mobile, Ala., shipyard. Austal was one of six Gulf Coast shipbuilders selected to receive infrastructure improvement contracts. The purpose is to expedite recovery of shipbuilding capability in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina by repairing and/or replacing shipbuilding facilities, to make lasting improvement in shipyard facilities that would result in measurable cost reductions in current and future Navy shipbuilding contracts, and to improve the ability of shipbuilding facilities on the Gulf Coast to withstand damage from potential hurricanes or other natural disasters. Work will be performed in Mobile, Ala, and is expected to be completed by Apr. 2009. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The contract was competitively procured and advertised via the Internet, with 18 proposals received from seven offerors. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington Navy Yard, D.C, is the contracting activity (N00024-08-C-2303)."

Aloha, Brad