What Would It Cost to Build a World-Class Dredging Vessel in America?

Also, there's this obscure podcast episode ("How We Can Fix American Shipyards") that seems thematically relevant. No transcript available unfortunately. Here's my paraphrase of Captain John Konrad's list of problems and solutions. Perhaps it's worth reaching out to him?

1. Segmentation in the industry. All the different ship-building types, regulators, and financial players are geographically separated and professionally overspecialized. He thinks the industry needs more resources for cross-pollination, including things like his own podcast. He encourages his American colleagues to go to more different conferences, more going to international conferences, more travel. He's startled to hear that the director of a major US shipyard has never even been to Korea, the biggest, where the most productive shipyards are located. He recommends the book "Let There Be A Shipyard." This book appears to be out of print. Maybe the rights to it could be purchased and it could be released as a free ebook?
2. Wrong assumptions. People think Korean labor is cheaper, that they work longer, that US unions are to blame, or that steel's cheaper in Korea. The podcaster denies that Koreans are paid more or work longer, and that Korean unions are stronger than American unions. He thinks US management is worse at dealing with unions in the USA. He says steel's only cheaper in Korea because they buy more, which is because they build more ships.
3. Quality issues. He says Korea does build some badly-built ships, but that they also build great ships. It just depends on what the buyer demands. Same as in the USA.
4. Management styles. He says the USA could still go a long ways in terms of adopting good management practices. He suggests that US shipyards should hire management experts from the US marines, who he thinks have excellent management practices.
5. Space. He says that both Korea and the USA have challenges with waterfront real estate, but that Korea does a better job managing it.
6. Export incentives. Korea subsidizes Korean shipyard exports. He thinks that the USA is going to produce for domestic use, not export, so this doesn't matter.
7. Design and equipment advantages. He says that Korea's rumored to have secret designs that make their process and equipment better. He says anything they have they will sell. Maybe this is something to look into as well. Maybe American shipyards are underinvesting in capital?
8. Skill. He points out that we make some incredible ships (nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers). No reason we can't build other types.
9. Zero tolerance for wasting time and delays. He thinks that Korean shipyards are much more focused work environments, and that American shipyards have a lot more goofing around. Korean shipyards are willing to fire employees, contractors, and clients who repeatedly waste time. Korean shipyards charge high prices to make changes once they've started building, or they'll give your ship to another client and make you wait in the back of the line to have your ship built (Korean shipyards own the ship until it's finished and then sold to the client). He thinks this is really important: US shipyards should be much less accommodating for changes once ship construction has begun. He thinks this is a feedback loop, in which delays cause people to come to work with nothing to do, which normalizes a culture of idleness.
10. Bad incentives. Everybody from the workers to the CEOs get paid whether or not the ship gets built.

The biggest dredger, the Leif Eiriksson, had 28% greater capacity than the VdG, so we might try pinning a Leif-beating dredger at at least $154 million.

This paper has a table comparing US domestic vs. foreign ship construction costs:

The Leif Eiriksson was 46373 GT. So at foreign shipyard costs, it could have cost anywhere from $23 million ($500/GT) to $231 million ($5000/GT). It looks like in the USA, we'd need to increase that to perhaps closer to $280 million at the high end.

Given that US costs appear to be about 1.5-2.5x that of foreign shipyards, that would give an alternative estimate of about $231-$385 million for a US-built Leif Eiriksson.

This paper on shipbuilding costs makes labor seem to be a relatively negligible portion of the total cost of building a ship, though I state that with very low confidence.

I think you'd need to convince the investor that this large dredging ship would ultimately find demand. Building it would not be competitively priced on the world scale, so the business logic is to satisfy unmet US demand. Making that business case seems important for justifying such a project. I have to imagine there are hurdles in terms of willingness to invest in infrastructure and regulatory barriers.

The US ship building industry is around $30 billion, while the worldwide industry is about $150 billion, so we're about 20% of the global industry. By contrast, we're about 40% of the global automotive industry (US vs world). This suggests to me that the USA is somehow at a structural disadvantage when it comes to shipbuilding? If the idea is that we build up capacity to build lots of big dredgers long-term both for domestic and international use, I think that's a concern.

Yeah that's one of my main concerns as well as far as just building a single dredger.

There's a drydock in Portland, OR long enough to accommodate up to a 366m ship, and the Leif Eiriksson is 213m. I don't know about Manson Construction Co, but it seems like if the shipyard size is the constraint, there are places in the USA that can accommodate.

Here it is in the US Code on the US House's website.

↑ comment by DirectedEvolution (AllAmericanBreakfast) · 2022-05-03T01:17:35.337Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Replies from: ChristianKl

↑ comment by ChristianKl · 2022-05-03T11:45:30.315Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

What does "Unless documented as a vessel of the United States" mean?

Replies from: jmh

↑ comment by jmh · 2022-05-04T03:10:14.771Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/9

Sounds like it just means if we're having problems with dredges it might not really be an issue of building them. I think maybe the question is what is preventing a business, person or government agency from buying such ships? I might get with governmental actors approvals might be highly biased towards US built. Then given the problem with size (and likely willingness to pay economically viable prices -- we do a REALLY BAD job with this type of maintenance activity due to wanting to spend the money on more visible or "profitable" activities with more immediate returns) having local ship builders to make the required ships is under provided.