Shipyard

The Bethlehem Steel shipyard at Sparrows Point has received a $25 million contract from the U.S. Navy to overhaul a multi-section floating drydock based at the Norfolk Naval Base.Work on the Sustain, the 552 foot-long, 124-foot-wide vessel, is expected to provide jobs for more than 650 people. The company plans to recall 650 furloughed workers needed for the project. The overhaul is to start in May and continue through October. Work will include steel repair and replacement, piping renewel, tank blasting and coating.

The Bethlehem Steel shipyard in Sparrows Point has won a $25 million contract to overhaul a floating Navy dry dock, a project that will provide jobs for more than 650 furloughed ship workers next year.Work on the Sustain, a 552-foot-long, 124-foot-wide, multisection drydock based in Norfolk, Va., is to start in May and continue through October. Work will include steel repair and replacement, piping renewal, tank blasting and coating.Bidding for the work was restricted to shipyards in the Navy's Norfolk home port area, in which the Sparrows Point facility is included.

A private investment group is trying to pull together a deal to build three 1,000-foot cruise ships at the former Bethlehem Steel shipyard in Sparrows Point, a $1.87 billion venture that, if successful, would be the first such major construction job in Baltimore in nearly two decades. Much of the plan is tentative. The investment group, Voyager Holdings Inc., needs a $1.64 billion loan guarantee from the federal government before it can begin construction, and it wants a waiver from Congress allowing it to begin operating a cruise line immediately using foreign-built ships.

Fueled by a slew of new contracts, the work force at Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s BethShip shipyard at Sparrows Point has soared from 200 to 874 in the last three months and could reach 1,000 by the end of the year, according to a company official."

A dry dock that needs millions of dollars in repairs arrived at Baltimore Marine Industries yesterday, but the huge award could slip away if a competing shipyard has its way. BMI won the $16.6 million Navy contract last month, but a Virginia shipyard that also bid for the project quickly filed a protest with the General Accounting Office alleging that it, not BMI, should have won the job. Norfolk Shipbuilding & Drydock Corp. (Norshipco) argued in its Aug. 25 protest that BMI underestimated the cost to transport and house those crew members of the Resolute dry dock who must stay with it in Baltimore.

GDANSK, Poland -- Under the Communists, this city and its shipyard served as the fulcrum of opposition, the center of defiance. Now the city thrives, but the shipyard is on the verge of bankruptcy and stands, dispirited, as an emblem of decline.In the coming months, at least 2,000 employees will be laid off, and half of the sprawling site of antiquated cranes, dank workshops and shaky overhead bridges will be closed.As workers poured out of the iron gates and the weak spring sun glinted off the Solidarity monument of three tall steel crosses hung with three steel ship anchors, the mood was of worn resignation.

A Baltimore Circuit Court jury awarded $19.8 million yesterday to three men who contracted a fatal lung disease after being exposed to asbestos. The plaintiffs, two of whom are dead, suffered from mesothelioma - a form of cancer directly linked to asbestos. They won the judgment against Hopeman Brothers, a ship carpentry company. Unlike most asbestos cases, only one of the victims was a laborer in a city shipyard. The others were a security guard, who patrolled the shipyard area, and a worker who maintained vending machines at the shipyard, said the plaintiffs' lawyer, Michael T. Edmonds with the law offices of Peter T. Nicholl.

Since 1899, the Coast Guard's shipyard at Curtis Bay has added years to the life of the sea-battered fleet, repairing and upgrading hundreds of cutters before sending them back on patrol. So in 2002 when shipyard officials looked at the future and saw a graying workforce with an average age of 47, they crafted a rejuvenation plan based on nurturing home-grown talent. The trades training program they created has placed 125 students and graduates in the Curtis Bay workforce, which numbers 625. The apprentices receive not just trades training but college credits.

SEATTLE -- As police began tracking tips and leads yesterday, Chief Norm Stamper said he believes the double slaying at Northlake Shipyard was deliberate and calculated, rather than a crime of passion or a random act of violence.Stamper noted that the killer -- who remained at large yesterday -- walked past other offices filled with workers to the rear of the building that houses the shipyard office before opening fire.Witnesses said the gunman walked calmly and silently in and out. He did not shoot anyone else on the way out or on the street.

Hoping for the best and fearing the worst if they refused, workers at Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Sparrows Point shipyard yesterday approved a labor deal with a group led by Peter G. Angelos that calls for small concessions, paving the way for the Orioles' owner to buy the yard for $26 million.By a 425-83 vote, workers approved a six-year plan that would give them a nickel-an-hour raise and a significantly better pension plan beginning this year, in exchange for reductions in holiday pay, shift differentials, overtime pay and extra pay for workers who have special skills.