Seaspan ULC

Seaspan ULC
Private
Industry Shipbuilding, Towing, and Short sea shipping
Predecessor Seaspan Marine Corporation
Headquarters North Vancouver
Area served
 Pacific Northwest
Number of employees
 2,800
Parent Washington Companies
Website www.seaspan.com

Seaspan ULC (formerly Seaspan Marine Corporation) provides marine-related services to the Pacific Northwest. Within the Group are three shipyards, an intermodal ferry business, and a tug and barge transportation company that serves both domestic and international markets. Seaspan is part of the Washington Companies, owned by Dennis Washington. Seaspan is run by his son Kyle Washington, as Executive Chairman, who has become a Canadian citizen.[1] Seaspan ULC was formerly known as Seaspan Marine Corporation, and prior to that Washington Marine Group.[2]

Marine Transportation

Seaspan ULC

Seaspan ULC has evolved into a prominent marine transportation company serving the West Coast of North America with a large tugboat and barge fleet. Seaspan's barges haul materials from the forest (logs, wood chips, hog fuel, lumber, pulp, paper and newsprint), minerals (construction aggregate and limestone), railcars, plus machinery, fuel and supplies to coastal communities. Seaspan also provides ship docking services to the Ports of Vancouver, Victoria, Esquimalt and other BC out ports.

Seaspan Ferries Corporation

Seaspan Ferries Corporation is a commercial roll on - roll off ferry service providing regularly scheduled transportation between British Columbia's Lower Mainland terminal in Delta and Vancouver Island's Nanaimo and Swartz Bay terminals.[3] Based in Delta, B.C., Seaspan Ferries Corporation transports semi-trailer trucks, containers, and rail cars on self-propelled ferries and integrated tug-barge units.[3]

Ships

Ocean Tugs

Coastal Tugs

Ship Assist & Escort Tugs

River Tugs

Ferries

Former Vessels

Shipyards

Near to Pacific Northwest shipping lanes, Seaspan Shipyards are a resource for the region's important marine industry. The Group's operations consist of three shipyards.

Vancouver Drydock

Located on the north shore of Vancouver Harbour at the eastern end of the former Burrard Dry Dock site, Vancouver Drydock operates two floating drydocks with lifting capacities of 36,000 tonnes in a Panamax beam dock, and 30,000 tonnes in a self-contained deployable dock.

Vancouver Shipyards

Vancouver Shipyards designs, constructs, maintains, and repairs all types of vessels. The yard's facilities include a major steel forming shop, a large fabrication and assembly hall, a totally enclosed paint facility, and a SyncroLift capable of lifting vessels up to 1200 tonnes.

Victoria Shipyards

Utilizing the Esquimalt Graving Dock, owned and operated by Public Works and Government Services of Canada, Victoria Shipyards can drydock and repair vessels up to 100,000 DWT. Victoria Shipyards is the largest ship repair company on Canada's Pacific coast.

Other Services

Marine Petrobulk

For over a quarter of a century, Marine Petrobulk has supplied all grades of bunker fuels to vessels entering the ports of Vancouver, New Westminster, Victoria, Prince Rupert, Kitimat and Nanaimo.

History

Note: There are many differences in dates between the Seaspan corporate history web page and other references; in such cases, the dates stated in the most reliable reference and on the Seaspan corporate history web page are both given.

Seaspan, as we know it today, is the product of a series of acquisitions and mergers in the coastal marine transportation and shipbuilding/ship repair business. Seaspan was created in 1970 by the merger of two prominent coastal towing firms: Vancouver Tug Boat Company (formed in 1898 by Harry A Jones) and Island Tug & Barge (formed in 1924 by Harold Elworthy).[4] In addition to being the largest tug and barge operation on the lower coast, Vancouver Tug also owned Vancouver Shipyards. In 1968[5] or 1969,[4] Vancouver Tug was acquired by the construction firm Dillingham Corporation, while Island Tug & Barge was acquired by Genstar Ltd. in 1969. The following year, Genstar joined with Dillingham to merge Island Tug and Vancouver Tug into a new corporation, Seaspan International Ltd. (In 1993 the name "Island Tug and Barge" was sold to the Shields family, of Shields Navigation, and the current Island Tug and Barge is not affiliated with Seaspan.)

Another prominent branch of the family tree was C H Cates & Sons Towing, generally known as Cates Towing, which was the primary shipdocking tug outfit in the Port of Vancouver for much of the 20th Century. Captain Charles Henry Cates arrived from Machias, Maine in 1885 and built the first cargo-handling wharf on the North Vancouver waterfront. He expanded into boatbuilding and repair and his tugs towed barges of building stone and assisted ships in Burrard Inlet.[6] In 1913 he formed C H Cates Towing, then joined with his three sons, all master mariners, to incorporate the company as CH Cates and Sons Limited in 1921.[7]

Vancouver Shipyard was founded in 1902 at the foot of Denman Street in Vancouver's Coal Harbour. Primarily a builder of small fishing and pleasure boats, the company built two minesweepers for the Royal Canadian Navy during the Second World War.[5] It was acquired by Vancouver Tug in 1954. In 1968[5] or 1969,[4] both Vancouver Tug and Vancouver Shipyards were acquired by Dillingham Corporation and moved to their present site at the foot of Pemberton Avenue in North Vancouver, where a larger shipyard was established. Since that time the company has constructed, outfitted, or converted 192 tugs, barges and ferries at the shipyard.[5]

Seaspan acquired many of the assets of the former Versatile Pacific Shipyards in two separate transactions. First, Seaspan and Allied Shipbuilders formed a partnership and, with assistance from both Federal and Provincial governments, created Vancouver Drydock Company to acquire the floating drydocks and some onshore facilities in North Vancouver from the defunct firm. Seaspan later acquired Allied's interest in the company.

Meanwhile, in 1994 Vancouver Shipyards (Esquimalt) Ltd. (now Victoria Shipyards) was created at the Esquimalt Graving Dock to fill the void left when the Yarrows shipyard in Esquimalt went bankrupt. Since then, Victoria Shipyards has become prominent in refitting and repair of cruise ships and vessels of the Royal Canadian Navy, including life-extension servicing of the five Halifax-class frigates based at CFB Esquimalt and the four Victoria-class submarines. It built the Orca-class patrol vessel fleet for the Royal Canadian Navy, constructed over two dozen search and rescue lifeboats for the Canadian Coast Guard, and assembled and launched the newest Seabus, the Burrard Pacific Breeze.[8]

Chronological History of Seaspan

( [4] except where noted)

References

  1. 1 2 "Safe Harbour". Globe and Mail. 25 May 2012. Archived from the original on 26 May 2012. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
  2. ↑ "Marine corporation revives Seaspan". North Shore News. 6 February 2011.
  3. 1 2 "Commercial Ferry - Seaspan". www.seaspan.com. Retrieved 24 August 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "History". Seaspan. Retrieved 2011-06-15.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Colton, Tim. "Vancouver Shipyard". Retrieved 2011-06-15.
  6. ↑ "Burrard Inlet's North Shore" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 July 2011. Retrieved 2011-06-15.
  7. ↑ "Cates Towing" (PDF). District of North Vancouver Socio-Historical Service Infrastructure. Retrieved 2011-06-15.
  8. ↑ Colton, Tim. "Victoria Shipyard". Retrieved 2011-06-15.
  9. ↑ Archived 24 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine.
  10. ↑ "Seaspan Ferries Corporation". Seaspan. Retrieved 24 August 2014.
  11. ↑ Retrieved 2011-06-15 Archived 23 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
  12. ↑ "Jubilation as Halifax Shipyard awarded contract". CBC News. 19 October 2011. Retrieved 21 October 2011.
  13. ↑ "East, West coasts win shipbuilding contracts, Quebec frozen out". Vancouver Sun. 19 October 2011. Retrieved 21 October 2011.
  14. ↑ "Shipyard Modernization Project". North Shore News. 21 October 2012. Retrieved 18 May 2017.
  15. ↑ "Canada's largest permanent gantry crane arrives at Seaspan's Vancouver Shipyards". BC Shipping News. 21 October 2012. Retrieved 19 May 2017.

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