RCN Public Affairs, 18 September 2023.
On September 6, 2023, the second Replenishment at Sea (RAS) post was installed onto the future His Majesty's Canadian Ship (HMCS) Protecteur. This installation represents the finished construction of all 123 structural blocks for the first Joint Support Ship (JSS). Major structural blocks were manufactured by Ideal Welders in Richmond, British Columbia and installed at Seaspan’s Vancouver Shipyard.
Production effort on HMCS Protecteur is now focused on outfitting piping, cabling, and internal systems. The RAS posts are a key structure used for the ship’s primary mission of resupply of fuel and stores at sea to Royal Canadian Navy and allied vessels.
Lessons learned from this first installation are being incorporated into the second JSS construction, which is well underway.
5 thoughts on “JSS completes structural construction on HMCS Protecteur”
If I understand correctly what the RCN and Seaspan are saying in various online documents, three NSS ships are currently under construction at Seaspan. These are JSS 1, JSS 2, and the CCG’s offshore oceanographic science vessel.
This seems to be an acceleration of the previously-announced production schedule.
Am I correct?
Ubique.
Les
I haven’t heard any official announcements of an acceleration, but like you I was surprised to find out that they were able to work on three ships at once. In particular, I was surprised that they can apparently assemble the Offshore Oceanographic Science Vessel at the same time as the first JSS, and at some speed, to judge by the photographs. However I doubt that the delivery times are being moved up. More likely they have faced the fact that they have to move forward on multiple ships at once to have any hope of meeting the existing schedule. The Polar Icebreaker must be in service before the Louis St Laurent breaks down or is retired in 2030. That is a huge ship, apparently difficult to build, and they cannot even begin work until the first JSS and OOSV are moved out of the way.
The yard has also reported selected statistics suggesting that the speed of construction on modules of the OOSV and second JSS are is substantially faster than on the first JSS. Which would be an encouraging sign.
One question I have been wondering about: who controls Seaspan? It seems to be a multinational company with considerable ties to both the US and China. But who is really in charge? Can we be sure our defence contracts are not reported back to the People’s Liberation Army Navy? Or, for that matter, the US government?
Hi Michael,
You make/raise very interesting and sensible points/questions that I had not considered.
Thank you for the insights.
Ubique.
Les
My takeaway is that both JSS 1 and with JSS 2 especially will more than likely be built and not subject to cancellation. Once build processes and lessons learned were refined, it was natural that work and schedules would accelerate.
A very encouraging idea Ted.
I hope that your (very sensible) logic prevails with whoever is the government over the time it takes to complete and commission the two JSS.
Ubique.
Les