The federal government announced yesterday that Seaspan’s Vancouver Shipyards in North Vancouver will build an additional 10 non-combat vessels for the Canadian Coast Guard under the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy.
The new ships include five medium endurance multi-tasked vessels (MEMTVs) and five offshore patrol vessels (OPVs) and increase Seaspan’s non-combat package to 17 ships from the seven originally announced in October 2011.
Seaspan, like Irving Shipbuilding on the East Coast, is in the midst of renovating its facilities to develop a world-class shipbuilding and ship repair centre of excellence. “We are one year into our shipyard modernization project, and with approximately one year remaining, the transformation of Vancouver Shipyards has been profound,” said Brian Carter, president of Seaspan Shipyards.
“In addition to the progress on facilities, we are making a huge investment in people, processes and tools. We continue to recruit the best and brightest engineers, project managers and procurement personnel to join the Seaspan team and look forward next year to increasing the number of unionized tradesmen and women once we commence construction of our first ship under the NSPS project.”