Sea lions find new home

GULFPORT, Miss. -- Four young sea lions stranded on California beaches have a new home at the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies. More than 1,000 sea lion pups have been abandoned on California beaches since January, more than three times the usual number. The reason for the stranding is unclear, but without their mothers' milk and protection, the sea lions are starving. IMMS is the only public display facility in the United States that has a permit to acquire stranded sea lions, said Moby Solangi, executive director of IMMS in Gulfport. It’s the first public display facility outside California to receive the abandoned pups. (Source: Sun Herald, 05/27/13)

Equity firm buys into shipyards

Private equity firm Littlejohn & Co. of Greenwich, Conn., now has an ownership stake in Gulf Coast Shipyard Group, which owns Trinity Yachts and TY Offshore shipyards in Gulfport and New Orleans. John Dane III, CEO of the shipyard group, says the company plans $9 million in improvements at the Gulfport yard, which will allow it to build more ships each year. Trinity, which builds large private yachts, has about 700 employees. TY Offshore builds offshore supply vessels and tank barges. (Sources: Multiple, including AP via Sun Herald, Maritime Executive, Marine Log, 05/28/13)

GCRL opens new building

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. – The first new building at the Gulf Coast Research Lab since Hurricane Katrina in 2005 is now open. State, local and educational leaders were on hand to celebrate the opening of the new $1.2 million Field Studies Building. Field Studies is one of the major missions of the lab that was established in the late 1940s by the Institutes for Higher Learning. It now belongs to the University of Southern Mississippi. (Source: Sun Herald, 05/27/13)

Suits filed in guest worker case

GULFPORT, Miss. -- About 33 Indian guest workers filed a lawsuit against Mobile, Ala.-based Signal International claiming they were tricked out of money and forced to work in barbaric conditions at the Pascagoula facility. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Gulfport, requests a jury trial. Two other suits against Signal were filed in Texas on behalf of 17 and 33 workers, respectively. The Southern Poverty Law Center said that in addition to those suits, more than 100 additional workers will be represented by other firms and organizations. (Source: Mississippi Press, 05/21/13)

JHSV completes acceptance trials

MOBILE, Ala. -- USNS Choctaw County, the Navy's second Joint High Speed Vessel, completed acceptance trials earlier this month in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the Naval Sea Systems Command. The Austal USA-built JHSV is an all-aluminum, non-combat catamaran transport ship. Choctaw County is slated for delivery in June and is part of a 10-ship contract valued at $1.6 billion. The first vessel in the order, the USNS Spearhead, also built by Austal, was delivered to the Navy in December 2012. (Sources, Naval Sea Systems Command, 05/16/13, al.com, 05/20/13)

Contract: L-3, $8M

L-3 Global Communications Solutions, Victor, N.Y., is being awarded an $8,093,065 firm-fixed-price General Services Administration delivery order to acquire Hawkeye III Lite tri-band antennas and Hawkeye diplexer kits for the Deployable Joint Command and Control Rapid Response kits and Sensitive Compartmented Information kits for the expeditionary command and control suite. This contract includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $10,530,855. Work will be performed in Panama City, Fla., and is expected to complete by September 2013. This contract was not competitively procured in accordance with 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1), only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. The Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division, Panama City is the contracting activity. (Source: DoD, 05/20/13)

Maritime Academy nears completion

PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- Classes will be underway at Ingalls Shipbuilding's Haley Reeves Barbour Maritime Training Academy by the end of summer. The academy, funded through a Hurricane Katrina community development block grant, is meant to provide a skilled workforce and will help Ingalls expand its 2- to 4-year apprentice program to about 1,000 students. It's named after the former governor, who was instrumental in its creation. Mobile, Ala.'s Ben M. Radcliff Contractor Inc. was awarded the $15.6 million contract to construct the facility. It should be complete by August. (Source: Mississippi Press, 05/19/13)

Keel authenticated for cutter

PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- Ingalls Shipbuilding division today authenticated the keel of the company's fifth U.S. Coast Guard National Security Cutter, James (WMSL 754). It's named for Joshua James, credited with saving more than 600 lives along the New England coastline during a nearly 60-year career in the 1800s with the U.S. Life Saving Service. Ingalls has delivered three National Security Cutters to the Coast Guard. The fourth ship, Hamilton (WMSL 753), will be christened on Oct. 26. (Source: Ingalls via Globe Newswire, 05/17/13)

VT Halter dry dock arrives

PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- A floating dry dock arrived at VT Halter Marine's Pascagoula shipyard from the Philippines as part of the company's multimillion-dollar south yard expansion. The 546-foot dry dock will help the company offer ship repair of semi-submersible drilling rigs and Panamax-size ships. The new repair facility will create about 400 new jobs while diversifying the company's offerings and increasing its customer base. The company currently employs about 2,200 workers at its Moss Point, Pascagoula and Escatawpa yards. (Source: Mississippi Press, 05/16/13)

Contract: Ingalls, $8.9M

Huntington Ingalls Inc., Pascagoula, Miss., is being awarded an $8,964,961 modification to previously awarded contract to exercise options for DDG 51 class follow yard services. The follow yard services provides necessary engineering, technical, material procurement and production support; configuration; class flight upgrades and new technology support; data and logistics management; lessons learned analysis; acceptance trials; post-delivery test and trials; post-shakedown availability support; reliability and maintainability; system safety program support; material and fleet turnover support; shipyard engineering team; turnkey; crew indoctrination, design tool/design standardization, detail design development, and other technical and engineering analyses for the purpose of supporting DDG 51 class ship construction and test and trials. Work will be done in Pascagoula (97 percent) and Washington, D.C. (3 percent), and is expected to be completed by May 2014. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity. (Source: DoD, 05/16/13)

Barge, tug christened

PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- VT Halter Marine and Crowley Maritime celebrated a partnership Thursday with the christening of a tug and a barge. VT Halter built the 600-foot long barge, called 750-3, which has the capacity to hold 330,000 barrels of petroleum products. The companion tug Liberty had been built at a shipyard in Washington state. They were christened separately at a double ceremony at VT Halter's Bayou Casotte shipyard. (Source: Sun Herald, 05/02/13)

Hybrid squadron introduced

SAN DIEGO -- The Navy Thursday introduced its first squadron combining manned and unmanned helicopters. Helicopter Maritime Strike 35, "the Magicians," with 140 sailors, will combined eight manned MH-60R Seahawks with 10 unmanned MQ-8B Fire Scouts and will work off coastal combat ships. The Navy expects the squadron to make its first deployment in early 2014 on the littoral combat ship Fort Worth, with two Fire Scouts and one Seahawk. Pilots will fly the drones from a control room inside the ship or even on shore. The Fire Scouts will reside at the Rancho Bernardo campus of Northrop Grumman, said the squadron's commanding officer. Fire Scouts can stay aloft at least eight hours, compared to the Seahawk's 3.3 hours. The Navy has been testing the Fire Scout since 2007 and deploying it since 2009, using it for counter-narcotics operations and in Afghanistan. (Source: Reuters, UT-San Diego, 05/02/13) Gulf Coast note: Fire Scouts are built in part in Moss Point, Miss.; Austal USA in Mobile, Ala., builds one version of the littoral combat ships.

Contract: Concurrent Tech, $8.4M

Concurrent Technologies Corp., Johnstown, Pa., is being awarded an $8,359,958 modification to previously awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to provide additional engineering and fabrication services in support of the ongoing development and testing for the carriage, stream, tow and recovery system. Work will be performed in Johnstown and is expected to be completed by February 2015. The Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division, Panama City, Fla., is the contracting activity. (Source: DoD, 05/02/13)

Ingalls shareholders get update

PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- Huntington Ingalls Industries shareholders got an update Wednesday on company plans to continue improvements on aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, get started on two new carrier programs and sign a construction contract for aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy. In addition, Ingalls expects a decision "soon" from the Navy on a destroyer program, "an award very important to the future of Ingalls," Huntington Ingalls President Mike Petters said. Thirty-two Huntington Ingalls Industries shareholders met for the annual meeting on Wednesday, help in Pascagoula for the first time. Ingalls has between 75,000 and 85,000 total shareholders, according to a company representative. (Source: Sun Herald, 05/01/13)

LPD 23 to be commissioned

The Navy will commission the amphibious transport dock ship, Anchorage, in its namesake city in Alaska May 4 during a ceremony at the Port of Anchorage. Anchorage is named in honor of the largest city in Alaska. Adm. Cecil Haney, commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, will deliver the keynote address. The 24,900-ton Anchorage, LPD 23, was built by Huntington Ingalls Industries - Avondale Shipyard in Louisiana. The ship is 684 feet long with an overall beam of 105 feet. Anchorage is the seventh amphibious transport dock ship in the San Antonio class. (Source: DoD, 05/01/13)

Ingalls to build 6th USCG NSC

NSC Stratton. Huntington Ingalls photo

PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- Huntington Ingalls Industries announced today that the U.S. Coast Guard has awarded a $487 million, fixed-price-incentive-fee contract to its Ingalls Shipbuilding division to build the sixth National Security Cutter, Munro (WMSL 755). NSCs, the flagships of the Coast Guard's cutter fleet, replace the 378‐foot Hamilton-class high-endurance cutters, which entered service during the 1960s. Ingalls has delivered the first three. The fourth, Hamilton (WMSL 753), currently at 40 percent complete, is scheduled to launch this summer and will be christened in October. Keel-laying for the fifth NSC, James (WMSL 754), is set for May 17. A long-lead material contract for Munro was awarded in 2012, and all associated equipment has been ordered. (Source: Huntington Ingalls via Globe Newswire, 05/01/13)