AOR Replacement & the Joint Support Ship (Merged Threads)

[Cloud Cover]

I bet the purchase price for her just went up.

 

[Kirkhill]

Cyclone Vertrep of Asterix per Federal Fleet Services Facebook 23 Jan 2018

 

[Kirkhill]

And another one

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

This has got to be a "joint" ship: Cadpat pants with a Navy floater jacket and an Air Force crash helmet.  ;D


What a fashion statement !!!!!

 

[Cloud Cover]

Cyclone Vertrep of Asterix per Federal Fleet Services Facebook 23 Jan 2018

My new desk top pic! Thx!

 

[Kirkhill]

If the Honourable Senators' figures are correct ($650M for five years or $659M to buy outright), my back-of-the-envelope calculations I made a few days ago would now mean a residual purchase value after five years of about $75M, and after ten years, well, it's the old $1 purchase.

But Asterix is also a new experiment, basically imposed on the Navy by the Conservatives when they agreed to Davie's plan: Operation of the ship by merchant seaman.

Personally, I say we should not buy it outright. We should operate it as planned by Federal Fleet for a few years. In the discussion that broke out recently on the Mistrals in another thread, someone reminded us that the Navy is awfully short of personnel, particularly in the engineering trades. If the model of having merchant seaman run your supply ships can be shown to work, this would perhaps be the turning point where Canada goes the full route of auxiliaries run by a merchant service (We already have it - the CFAV - and would just need to expand it) and the Navy brass realize that it is to its advantage to do so. The biggest one being of course having four AOR's without any new pressures on the engineering trades.

Then buy it outright, keep merchant seaman operation and "get the next three" proposed by Senator Colin.

BTW, it may have escaped notice here, but: For Davie to make the modification it did to Asterix, it had to either acquire outright or measure by itself and develop a full set of plans for the Asterix, including the built hull and Engine layout. This means that, for the next ones, they wouldn't even have to acquire a next hull, they could just build it from scratch. It may even be faster, as they would be able to do module building and assembly, which they could not do on Asterix. Moreover, building it new would, for that portion (hull and main engine), not be much more expansive than purchasing a five year old full ship, stripping it bare and completely refurbishing the main engine as new.

Just thinking about this - one of the key elements that people miss in calculations is the issue of "liability".  Seeing as how Asterix is owned and operated by FFS then I assume that in the event of an event FFS will be picking up the tab through its insurance company.

That probably had a significant impact on the decision making process in the design stage.  It wasn't some civil servant's career, or even a four-ringer's, that was on the line.  If anything goes wrong it isn't on them.

 

[Navy_Pete]

There are a bunch of costs that would be above and beyond the purchase that come with the lease.  If you include crew, maintenance and other costs, it's probably $100k+ per sea day. Then there is also the devaluation of the ship, plus the docking at the end of the five years. Overall there probably about another $100-120 million of costs over that time that FFS will be on the hook for, so it's not as much of a bad deal as you might think, and I'm sure any extensions for another 5 years would be much less than the initial five.

 

[jollyjacktar]

PRE was costing about that a day in my time.  They're not cheap beasts to drive.

 

[suffolkowner]

https://www.therecord.com/opinion-story/8086568-shipbuilding-strategy-hobbling-our-fleets/

from the above article

Timing: On Nov. 7, 2017, Andy Smith, deputy commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard, testified before a parliamentary committee that Seaspan would not finish its first four vessels for the Coast Guard until 2023, and only then will they start on the supply ships. This means the new refuellers will not join the fleet until 2026 and 2028.

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

from the above article

Timing: On Nov. 7, 2017, Andy Smith, deputy commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard, testified before a parliamentary committee that Seaspan would not finish its first four vessels for the Coast Guard until 2023, and only then will they start on the supply ships. This means the new refuellers will not join the fleet until 2026 and 2028.

But..... according to the Liberal Party that information is classified. 

 

[Czech_pivo]

Hmmm, wondering if the Fed's are planning to hold off on making the Obelix decision until the next Fed election is underway, what a great way for them to score points in the Quebec ridings that are currently Tory. Figure they make the announcements in about 15-16 months (roughly spring of 2019) and Davie could have Obelix ready by say fall/winter of 2021 - still 7yrs ahead when the 2nd AOR is looking to be ready.
The timing would be perfect for them, the current interim AOR would have about 12 months of official service under its keel and the Liberal could then just say something like, 'Davie's ship has proven its self in more ways than we've imagined, as a result, we are asking them to build us a 2nd interim AOR.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

from the above article

Timing: On Nov. 7, 2017, Andy Smith, deputy commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard, testified before a parliamentary committee that Seaspan would not finish its first four vessels for the Coast Guard until 2023, and only then will they start on the supply ships. This means the new refuellers will not join the fleet until 2026 and 2028.

and the first one was launched in Dec 2017, only off by 6 years

 

[suffolkowner]

I think he meant the last of the group of four

they obviously don't know when the ships will be delivered as they haven't even signed a contract yet

10 more years though is a joke its a good thing we take national defence seriously in this country

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

The Commissioner seems to have been quite clear, Colin: finish the first four vessels.

While the first of the OFSV is "launched" (i.e. in the water) it is not finished yet, and the timeline for finishing it (and turning it over to the Coast Guard is some time this late spring or early summer. And that is, I am sorry to say, a Dinky-Toy ship.

With the pictures available from Seaspan, you can calculate that the third OFSV will be turned over to the Coast Guard sometimes around early winter 2020.

The fourth, which is a larger ship and a different type so no "learning curve advantage", hasn't even started yet and it is not much of a stretch to think that it will not be turned over to the Coast Guard in finished state before 2022.

So the Commissioner may be a year or two off - if we are happily lucky and no more delays happen, but he is definitely not off by six years.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The 4 I can see, the Fourth one is delayed, sadly I expect that the design is top heavy and it was Seaspan that found the flaws in the current OFSV design, requiring a delay to rectify them. The Science Vessel appears to be a larger version of the OFSV, but I can't confirm that.

This is #2 in November 2017

 

[Kirkhill]

I think you are on to something there Colin.

Seaspan has got a more complex challenge than Irving because it has multiple short runs of various ship types.  While Irving may have more complex ships (a debatable point IMO wrt the AOPS), it only has two of them to manage.

Meanwhile Seaspan has to receive wishlist designs from various departments, vet them, turn them into functional designs that will float, get the approval of the disappointed wishers to proceed with the revised designs, complete the compromised design and then build the ships.

I think it is telling that contracts to build the OOSV and the JSS/AORs have not been let yet (IIRC).

 

[Colin Parkinson]

They seem quite capable, once a design is picked and the go ahead is given. I note that Davie has won some smaller contracts as well from the CCG https://www.facebook.com/Chantier.Naval.Forillon/?hc_ref=ARST2X6ar7RZJH4z_4p8DE_9K9pv04pkyaXIikuRUHvGdipOOqj_KpFe7N6ht_vko8U

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Colin, Chantier naval Forillon is an independent yard located in Gaspé. It is owned locally by the Coté family and it has nothing to do with Davie.

Davie does have Cost Guard contracts, but they are for the upgrades and maintenance refits of Coast Guard ships, not for new builds of any size.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Thanks for that, I thought the 2 were related.

 

[Navy_Pete]

I think you are on to something there Colin.

Seaspan has got a more complex challenge than Irving because it has multiple short runs of various ship types.  While Irving may have more complex ships (a debatable point IMO wrt the AOPS), it only has two of them to manage.

Meanwhile Seaspan has to receive wishlist designs from various departments, vet them, turn them into functional designs that will float, get the approval of the disappointed wishers to proceed with the revised designs, complete the compromised design and then build the ships.

I think it is telling that contracts to build the OOSV and the JSS/AORs have not been let yet (IIRC).

That's the 'Design, then build' part of the contracting strategy.  Commercially it's more common to do one contract for delivery that includes all the design. Doesn't really make sense to do that when it's impossible to accurately estimate the build cost until you are well down the way of the design spiral for a unique ship.  If it was a standard ship that you had built multiple versions of, you could put together a realistic fixed point bid.

The VSY program is pretty rough; aside from all the ongoing tweaks on the current build, they are concurrently doing design and planning work for OOSV, JSS, and preliminary work for Polar. There is a limited talent pool for that kind of work so you can only carry so much overhead.  For a brand new shipyard starting from scratch that's a brutal program, and would have been a challenge for even established yards to do. Having walked both OFSV and AOPS I'm not really sure which is more complex; there is a lot jammed into the small footprint of the OFSV and it's equipment spaces are easily comparable to anything you would see on a warship in terms of density. AOPS is obviously bigger, with different things onboard, but a lot more of it is empty space, so it's more volume but arguably easier work, so a different challenge.

With the long AOPs run, ISI has enough time to get all that stuff ready, build the experience base in the workers and generally sort themselves out before CSC, which is really good news for that program.  It's still going to be a challenge but this gives them a fighting chance as they are starting from scratch as well.  The culture of the construction side is different to deal with compared to the refit side as well, so while it won't be cheap, don't think we'll have some of the same quality issues that we get with refits, as they've brought in some really good, experienced people that seem to generally want to deliver a good product for the RCN.