Scripps Institution of Oceanography is building its next coastal research vessel in Chile. If that award stands as the model for how publicly funded institutions replace their fleets, the small American shipyards
Scripps Institution of Oceanography is building its next coastal research vessel in Chile. If that award stands as the model for how publicly funded institutions replace their fleets, the small American shipyards that build this country’s research vessels lose a market they cannot survive without.
MarineLink.com reported the award in August: a 124-foot vessel for Scripps, part of the University of California San Diego, going to ASENAV in Valdivia, Chile. Qualified U.S. yards competed for it and came in under the project’s publicly stated budget. The work is leaving the country anyway. That is why eleven U.S. shipyards that normally compete against each other signed a joint letter asking the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to examine how the research vessel exemption is being applied to publicly funded vessels, and whether the guidance or the law needs tightening before this becomes precedent.
One Award Becomes the Template
University and public-agency research vessels are a substantial share of the order book at the yard I work for, and we are far from alone. I cannot plan around a whole sales vertical disappearing. With tariffs pushing prices up
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