Davie Shipbuilding delivers Royal Canadian Navy's new mothership on time, to budget
Davie Shipbuilding, Canada’s leading shipbuilder, has completed the construction, commissioning and sea-trials of the first Resolve-Class Naval Support Ship, Asterix. The ship was delivered on time, to budget and most importantly, at an internationally competitive cost. The ship departed Québec City 23 December 2017 en-route to Canadian Forces Base Halifax where she will enter service with the Royal Canadian Navy and be operated by Federal Fleet Services Inc.
Her crew of 36 Canadian merchant sailors together with Davie personnel and industry contractors sailed the 26,000-tonne ship on her maiden voyage. During the journey, they completed the testing of her propulsion and navigation systems and state-of-the-art military systems. Upon arrival in Halifax, the ship will welcome aboard members of the Royal Canadian Navy to begin integration training during the month of January 2018 prior to supporting Canadian naval operations from February 2018, for the next 10 years.
The delivery of Asterix represents the first new naval support ship to enter service with the Royal Canadian Navy in over 50 years. It is also the first large naval platform to be delivered from a Canadian shipyard in over 20 years and the first naval ship to be delivered since the launch of the National Shipbuilding Strategy.
The Resolve-Class Naval Support Ship, Asterix, was designed by Rolls Royce to meet the highest and most stringent of NATO and Lloyds Register requirements to support military operations, specifically for its primary Replenishment-At-Sea functionality but also in terms of systems redundancy, damage control, ammunition storage and other systems onboard.
The construction of Asterix was entirely privately financed; whereby for the first time in modern Canadian procurement history, all the technical and financial risk was borne by the companies involved – Davie and Federal Fleet Services. Unlike other current marine projects, the Canadian taxpayer has not been asked to pay a single cent until the ship is ready and able to meet the needs of the RCN.
IHS Markit (Jane’s), the leading global naval and defence analysis firm, assessed the Resolve-Class Naval Support Ship to be, in all respects, on a par with the world’s best naval support ships.
The Resolve-Class Naval Support ship took 24 months to deliver and employed over 1000 Canadian shipbuilders at Davie and provided contracts to 918 Canadian suppliers across the country.
Following common practice, also adopted by Canada’s key allies including the US Navy and Royal Navy, the vessel was converted using the hull from a modern, high quality and ice-strengthened containership. During the conversion, the ship was stripped down to its keel and rebuilt in a modular fashion, installing the same key Canadian military systems that will be installed on Canada’s future naval fleet such as OSI of Vancouver’s Integrated Tactical and Navigation System, L3 MAPPS of Montreal’s Integrated Platform Management System and Hepburn of Toronto’s Replenishment-At-Sea Systems.
Other innovative features include an extensive intermodal handling area that is accessible at sea (a first within NATO), Canada’s first at sea hospital facility (with a full operating theatre) and an advanced aviation capability which is able to land all of the RCAF’s helicopters (including Chinooks).
A fully redundant electrical power plant and propulsion system were also installed to preclude the possibility of a recurrence of a complete power plant failure that struck HMCS PROTECTEUR in February 2014.
Asterix will also be the Canadian Government’s most “Green Ship” and features, amongst other environmental innovations, Terragon of Montreal’s MAGS 8 waste management system.
About Davie
Since its inception (founded in 1825), Davie has built over 700 vessels, from steamboats to diesel-electric oilfield services vessels with advanced dynamic positioning systems and naval vessels with complex combat systems. Davie has built, converted, repaired and upgraded almost every form of vessel, rig and offshore platform including tankers, bulk carriers, containerships, fishing vessels, ferries, naval vessels and jack-up and semi-submersible drilling and production platforms. Davie has been involved with numerous civil construction projects from port terminals to bridge building to the construction of sporting stadiums.
