St. Catharines shipyard awarded $135 million to upgrade coast guard ship
Published November 3, 2022 at 10:34 am
Heddle Shipyards in St. Catharines has a pretty big job ahead as they were awarded a $135.56 million contract to upgrade the Canadian Coast Guard Ship Terry Fox, large multitasked icebreaker.
The ship will be dry-docked at the shipyards while it undergoes a “vessel life extension” process in two phases: a 14-month engineering and procurement phase which will prepare the shipyard for the second phase, the 18 month work period where the vessel will be drydocked for the project.
MP Helena Jaczek, Minister of Public Services and Procurement, said, “The National Shipbuilding Strategy continues to generate social and economic benefits for communities right across Canada. This contract with Heddle Shipyards will extend the life of the CCGS Terry Fox, while creating and maintaining jobs in St. Catharines, Ontario.”
The CCGS Terry Fox is capable of sustained operations in the Arctic archipelago over the summer months and icebreaking escort operations in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and East Coast of Newfoundland in the winter. The vessel also assists in various coast guard programs including Arctic scientific missions.
Mario Pelletier, Commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard, noted, “Keeping our vessels in good working order is critical to ensuring that our personnel can provide Canadians with the services they need throughout the year.”
“We are pleased to be working with Heddle Shipyards to ensure that the CCGS Terry Fox will be serving Canadians for many more years to come.”
The CCGS Terry Fox was originally built to perform Arctic resource exploration in 1983. In 1991, the vessel was leased by the Canadian Coast Guard and later bought in 1994 to replace the CCGS Sir John A. Macdonald that had just been decommissioned and the CCGS Louis St. Laurent was entering an extensive refit at the time.
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