Fire Boat article in boat forum.
PORTLAND FIRE DEPARTMENT
MARINE DIVISION
UPDATE ON THE NEW FIREBOAT
DECEMBER 18, 2008
Hello from the Marine Division,
Please allow me the opportunity to provide all of you with an update of the status of the new Fireboat construction. Things are moving along very nicely up in Meteghan River, Nova Scotia where the shipyard is located. The shipyard is A. F. Theriault & Son Ltd. and is on the west coast of Nova Scotia about thirty minutes south of Digby. This shipyard is a very active place and is one of the largest yards in Nova Scotia. It remains a family owned and operated business since 1938 and has a very good reputation. They began by building sturdy wooden fishing vessels and over the years moved into steel, fiberglass, aluminum and carbon fiber construction. They still build fishing boats but also construct yachts, patrol boats, pilot boats, research vessels, catamaran passenger vessels and now their first Fireboat. The Chief and the New Fireboat Workgroup are very pleased with the shipyard and they are doing an outstanding job. Michael Mason is the project manager who has been charged with scheduling all work, ordering all components, dealing with issues that are identified in the specification and revising drawings as well as keeping us updated. He oversees a very skilled team whose workmanship we have seen thus far is very impressive. The boat is made entirely of aluminum and the welders have done a great job joining the plates together and fabricating various components. Similar to building a home, the shell, or in this case the hull, went up fairly quickly, but now as everything is strategically placed into the boat, things seemed to have slowed down a bit. The engine room of the new boat is relatively small and it hard to believe that all that is necessary to make this boat function will be placed into that small space.
There is no easy way to get to the shipyard from Portland. The CAT was an option while it was running out of Portland but their schedule did not work very well for us. We were very fortunate that the Chief was able to hire an aircraft on two occasions at the very beginning of the build so that he and several of the Workgroup members could fly up and sort of lay out the ground rules. Since then there have been a handful of additional trips to the yard by vehicle. The preferred route is to drive to Saint John, New Brunswick and take the ferry across but timing is everything given there is only one ferry daily and it leaves Saint John at 0900. The drive time and the three hour ferry ride make for a total travel time of about seven and one half hours. More recently however the last couple of trips required that the Workgroup members drive the entire distance since bad weather had cancelled the ferry. The total travel time while driving is about thirteen hours. Since we have great confidence in and communications with the shipyard, our number of visits have been much lower than we had anticipated. There are likely to be several more visits as things on the boat get down to the placement of specific items like the electronics and medical bay equipment. The last visit will be for the launching of the boat and some sea trails before it gets underway for Portland. The original delivery date of mid February has certainly drifted into March and depending upon the weather at the planned time of delivery could put us into April. Most of the delay was probably on our own account as we took appropriate time to examine and research some issues that arose before coming to a decision. This has not been an issue with the shipyard since they still own the boat until we accept it here in Portland and they would prefer to run it down during nicer weather. The Chief is working on a plan to properly welcome the new boat to Portland. Additionally we are giving thought to just what to do with the old boat once the new one goes into service. There will be a time when we will be using both boats, that is until the Marine Division crew is trained on operating the new boat.
I am personally very excited about the new boat. Like most things there was a great deal of compromise that was required to get us to this point and as you would guess the compromises revolved around money. This boat was not what we had envisioned several years ago when the project truly moved forward in earnest after on again, off again discussion that began in 1987. I will say though that with the limited budget we had to work with, we are getting a very fine boat. Yes, it is a little narrower, more shallow and has less pumping capacity than we wanted, but it will work very well for the PFD’s mission. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the new boat. You will be receiving this letter via e-mail. Also please see the attachments for a link on Wooden Boat where Mr. Mason has a thread that describes the build from the very beginning. Also attached (hopefully) will be a few recent photos.
Regards,
Captain David Pendleton