Canadian yard expanding

Canadian yard Seaspan is expanding its Vancouver Drydock to build up the company’s ship repair and maintenance operations on the Pacific Northwest coast. Seaspan has received planning approval from the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority to extend its North Vancouver drydock facilities to increase capacity and maintain additional vessels. Seaspan concentrated its ship repair and maintenance projects at Vancouver Drydock, resulting in the shipyard running at or near capacity for several years. The drydock expansion will increase Seaspan’s capacity for ship repair projects by about 30%, and will result in approximately 100 new jobs, said Mr Paul Hebson, vice president and general manager of Vancouver Drydock. The project includes a drydock expansion and a new operations building. The drydock expansion includes extending Seaspan’s current water lot by 40m and the addition of two new smaller drydocks and a floating work pontoon to the west of the two existing drydocks. The project is expected to take approximately one year to complete, with the drydocks and work pontoon arriving by water fully assembled.