904 356-JOBS (5627)

904 356-JOBS (5627)

BAE unveils largest shiplift in U.S. at Jax shipyard (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — BAE Systems ticked up its speed and capacity at Jacksonville shipyard as it unveiled the largest shiplift in the country for military and commercial ships.

Leaders from BAE and the U.S. Navy cut the ribbon to a modern Pearlson shiplift and a 4-acre land-level repair facility in Jacksonville Monday.

The facility is slated to service ships at the Mayport Naval Station and commercial vessels en route to Jaxport.

With a 25,000-ton capacity, the shiplift is among the 10 largest in the world.

The new shiplift installed by Pearlson Shiplift Corporation accelerates the transfer of ships out of the water, said Tim Spratto, the vice president and general manager of Jacksonville Ship Repair, which is part of BAE.

“It’s capacity and speed. So a docking evolution on a dry dock takes 150 people an entire day. A docking evolution here will take 15 to 20 people an hour and a half,” Spratto said.

Without the new facility, he said it would take two days to work on any maintenance or repairs. Now, crews can begin work within half a day using the shiplift.

“It’s going to be an adventure,” Spratto said. “I’ve visited so many shiplifts around the world to try to figure out how everybody does things, and it’s going to be great to bring all that to fruition here and then figure out how it fits into the way we’re going to do business.”

Spratto said the company plans to use the shiplift on its first ship in 17 days and expects to service a 50/50 mix of military and commercial vessels using the new installation.

Tom Arseneault, BAE CEO and president, said the uptake in capacity and speed is set to add 300 jobs to the Jacksonville facility.

The facility is also set to support the Navy’s goal of increasing its ship count.

“The Navy is working on an issue countrywide in order to increase the industrial base, the capacity of the industrial base, but we’re doing that, certainly with the shiplift for the ship-repair dimensions of that,” Arseneault said.

The CEO added that BAE is also poised to support the Navy with additions to its submarine industrial base, in which it builds a variety of parts for the underwater vessels.

Tariffs and inflation do present challenges for BAE, Arseneault said, but the company plans to figure out ways to reduce costs in other areas.

“It’s increasingly a cost of doing business, and as we bring our efforts to bear, to add value to that material, we’ll make sure that we’re doing everything we can to save costs elsewhere in order to offset them,” he said.

Photo courtesy of BAE Systems