Category Archives: Navy

NATO Exercise Cutlass Fury comes to Halifax in Sept.

NATO exercise Cutlass Fury will be coming to Halifax this September. Ships should begin arriving the first week of September.

At Yesterdays council meeting, the City approved a flypast request for the opening of Cutlass Fury 2019. The exercise will see 22 warships departing the basin Sept 9, and will be overflown by a Cyclone from Shearwater, 4 Hornets from Bagotville, 2 alpha jets from top aces, and a CP140 from greenwood. the Flyover is scheduled for 1300.

The last Cutlass Fury took place in 2016, and was about half the size of this years edition. Canada, the United States, The United Kingdom, Spain, France and Germany took part in that exercise.

Halifax Based Leeway marine will also be providing a “vessel of interest” to the exercise participants.

Cutlass fury runs Sept 9-20, The area of operation will be approximately 50-100 nm southeast of Halifax Harbour.

Design Selected for new Naval Large Tug.

The contract for the design of the new Naval large tugs project was issued by Ocean Industries. Robert Allen Ltd. of Vancouver will be providing a variation of their Ramparts 2400 design. The design is commercially proven, with 48 having been built internationally.  The Tug is not currently in use in Canada.

Ocean will be building 4 tugs, 2 for each coast. the New large tugs will replace the existing Glen Class.

New Tugs for the Navy

This week in the Herald, I cover the announcement that Group Ocean will be building 4 new Tugs for the Navy. These will replace the 5 Glen Class tugs, and 2 Fire Class boats. 3 Glen Tugs are currently stationed in Halifax. Firebird was retired and sold in 2014. The remaining 2 tugs and fire-boat are in service in Esquimalt.

I cover the History of the procurement, dating back to 2012, and the 2015 attempt to charter vessels. and have some details on the new Boats, that seemingly no one else asked about.

CSC Winner Announced

the federal government issued a release identifying Lockheed Martin as the preferred design for the CSC. Canada’s Combat Ship Team – composed of Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems and CAE, MDA, L3 Technologies, and Ultra Electronics – submitted a proposal based on the British Type 26 Global Combat Ship. the British are currently building this ship, though it is not yet in service.

so much for a proven off the shelf design. I covered the 3 eligible bidders in a post earlier this year.

Anyway, the release says:

The Government of Canada and Irving Shipbuilding Inc. have identified Lockheed Martin Canada Inc. as the preferred bidder to provide the design and design team for the Royal Canadian Navy’s future Canadian Surface Combatants.

While this represents a significant milestone in the competitive process, more work is required before a contract is awarded.

Lockheed Martin Canada Inc. must now go through the “due diligence process,” which includes:

  • negotiations with the company on intellectual property rights
  • an assessment of combat systems performance
  • an assessment of the company’s financial capability to deliver the project, together with the verification of various other administrative matters

Should the preferred bidder not successfully demonstrate to Canada and Irving Shipbuilding Inc. that it meets all of the due diligence requirements, then the next highest ranked compliant bidder will become the preferred bidder. The new preferred bidder will then have to successfully demonstrate that it meets all of the due diligence requirements.

The identification of the preferred bidder follows a rigorous bid evaluation process. This process has been, and will continue to be, overseen by an independent Fairness Monitor. To date, the Fairness Monitor has submitted a series of interim reports on the Canadian Surface Combatant procurement process, and each of these reports have not identified any fairness deficiencies.

More recently, the Fairness Monitor provided the following statement to Public Services and Procurement Canada:

“As the Fairness Monitor for the Canadian Surface Combatant project, we have monitored the evaluation of proposals submitted in response to the Request for Proposals and have identified no fairness deficiencies. It is our opinion that the evaluation of proposals was conducted in a fair manner. Decisions were made objectively and free from personal favouritism or improper influence, and the process encompassed the elements of openness, competitiveness, transparency and compliance with the Request for Proposals.”

A contract award is expected this winter, with construction beginning in the early 2020s.

The Canadian Surface Combatant project is the largest, most complex procurement ever undertaken by the Government of Canada. These ships will form the backbone of our Royal Canadian Navy and will be Canada’s major surface component of maritime combat power for decades to come.

The Government of Canada remains committed to being open and transparent at each stage of the procurement process.

New tugs for the Navy. this time for sure.

The Feds have another tender on the street for the construction for 4 large navy tugs to replace the glen Class. this one has been working through procurement circles for a number of years, they first tried for 6 tugs in 2012. that went nowhere, so in 2015 they went looking to bareboat or time charter commercial tugs. that too went nowhere and now they are looking to buy again.

the request is for an off the shelf design, and the tender requires bidders to present a working example of the design, not more then 10 years old, with more then 1000 working hours.

this tender reads:

the Department of National Defence (DND) has a requirement to replace the Royal Canadian Navys (RCNs) five Glen-class tugs and two Fire-class fireboats with four Naval Large Tugs (NLTs). The procurement strategy is to award a single contract for the design and construction of four commercial-off-the-shelf tugs through a competitive process on buyandsell.gc.ca.

Two tugs will be delivered to Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Esquimalt in British Columbia and the other two tugs will be delivered to CFB Halifax in Nova Scotia.

DND is seeking to acquire four NLTs of a proven, in-service, commercial off-the-shelf design. The primary mission of the new NLTs will be to provide a platform to conduct moves of larger RCN vessels, along with providing towing and afloat firefighting capability, in the harbors on both coasts. Each new vessel is expected to have a minimum 25-year life expectancy. In addition, as part of this procurement, DND will also acquire the necessary technical data packages, operator and maintenance training, and two years worth of spare parts for each vessel.

the tender also mentions that The vessels must be delivered with no more than 500 hours on the main engines and that The vessels shall not be towed from the shipyard to the delivery points.

US Aircraft Carrier off NS.

the US Navy Aircraft Carrier USS Harry S. Truman,  and its strike group are currently believed to be operating off Nova Scotia.  Pictured above is the carrier with HMCS Halifax. (US Navy Photo)


On the 10th/11th C-2 Greyhound Aircraft were spotted at Halifax Airport, and the USS Arleigh Burke which spent last weekend at the dockyard is currently assigned the the Truman’s Carrier strike group. (Above photo by Barry S.)

Navy Today  mentioned HMCS Toronto, cruiser USS Normandy, destroyers USS Forrest Sherman (DDG 98) and USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51), and fixed wing aircraft and helicopters from Carrier Air Wing One (CVW-1) will also be participating in the exercises.

 

UPDATE:

Could this the them? Arctic is USNS Arctic – a civilian manned US Military Sealift Command replenishment ship.

HMCS St. Johns on the Synchro lift

HMCS Saint Johns has been on the Dockyard Synchrolift for the last week or so, having some hull plating repaired. The Ship returned from Op reassurance in the Mediterranean July 23.

HMCS Montreal is at the graving dock at Halifax Shipyards for a work period which began August 15th, and HMCS Fredricton is at the machine shop Wharf, having exited the graving dock in early august.

HMCS Halifax pulls into Irving for Gas.

Warships often tied up directly at the Imperial oil wharves for fuel in the past, but to my knowledge, this is the first time a warship has pulled up to the Irving Oil wharf.

Since the navy is now pulling up to Irvings for gas like the rest of us, the question remains, when will we get a harbour side, ship sized BigStop.

HMCS Halifax spent the past week at the Static sound range off Mcnabs.

AOPS Update

(Above) The first AOPS, the Future HMCS Harry DeWolf has been tarped off for painting, prior to launching in September. the modules were painted indoors as they were built, though it was presumably with a primer, as the grey is not the Canadian navy grey in use on existing warships.

(Below)The Middle and Stern Mega blocks for the Future HMCS Margaret Brooke are well underway. they will be moved out Post launching of the Dewolf and assembled, then joined by the Bow mega block.



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