Allied Shipbuilders Ltd is a privately held shipbuilding and ship repairing company established in Canada in 1948.
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Founded in 1948 by Arthur McLaren (1919-1999), Allied Shipbuilders is one of the older continually operating commercial shipyards on the Pacific Coast of North America. Located at the mouth of the Seymour River in North Vancouver, the company provides shipbuilding, ship repair, and engineering services to ferries, fish boats, and tugs that operate on the Pacific Coast.
Other organizations sharing Allieds site are Western Machine Works (providing hydraulic tow pin units for tug boats), and Coast Engineering Works, who build and service marine drive shafts. Located on site, but not owned by Allied, are Osborne Propellers and Fishold Services Ltd.
Allied Shipbuilder's roots were founded in a predecessor company, West Coast Shipbuilders Ltd. The promise of wartime cargo ship orders provided the incentive for a group of Vancouver businessmen to set up a four-berth shipyard in False Creek, Vancouver, British Columbia,[1] on a site where the J. Coughlan & Sons shipyard had operated during the First World War and where part of the Athlete's Village for the 2010 Winter Olympics was later built. W. D. McLaren was hired as general manager while son Arthur joined the firm after completing his engineering degree at University of British Columbia. West Coast Shipbuilders was set up in 1941 and launched the first ship, the Fort Chilcotin, in March 1942. By war's end, West Coast Shipbuilders had become Canada's second largest shipyard, having launched 55 Fort and Park ships -- the Canadian equivalent to the Liberty Ship.[2] After the war the company built six coastal steamers, five maintenance ships for the Royal Navy, and the M.V. Anscomb ferry for service on Kootenay Lake before folding in 1948. By that time, Arthur McLaren had become shipyard manager.[1]
McLaren then set up his own small shipbuilding company on a corner of the West Coast Shipbuilders yard in November 1948. Allied Builders Ltd (the company did not become Allied Shipbuilders until 1961) concentrated on building small steel vessels. In 1961, the company expanded into ship repairs by acquiring Burrard Shipyard & Marine Ways, which operated a ship repair yard in Coal Harbour. This yard was closed in 1979.[1]
In 1967 Allied left False Creek, re-establishing a larger shipyard just east of the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing, where it continues to operate to this day. Now primarily a repair yard, Allied has constructed 259 hulls over its history, including fish boats, log barges, ferries, Arctic icebreakers, tugs, and harbour patrol vessels.[3][1] The company operates three floating drydocks, two of which were constructed in its own yards.[1]
Since 1990, Allied has constructed seven hulls.[3] Internally these are numbered hulls 254-259
Allied's founder, Thomas Arthur McLaren, a Professional Engineer and Fellow of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, along with Vancouver author Vickie Jensen published the book Ships of Steel, recounting the stories gathered by T.A during his many years in the shipbuilding industry. The book was published after T.A.'s death in 1999.
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