Tees newbuildings

The only shipbuilder on the river Tees in England, Aveco’s Normanby Wharf, is expecting a contract worth around £250,00 for a new river tanker, to be followed by the £1m-plus Blade Runner 3 – a 76m motorised shallow water barge used to transport wind turbines from Newport to Southampton.

The yard built the first two Blade Runners and has high hopes it will win the contract to construct the third one at the end of the year. However, this next one will be a little trickier since the turbine blades are getting bigger and the barges can’t be any larger because of the constraints they are working in, so the design of the third one will mean a redesigned wheelhouse.

But before that happens, the yard will shortly be delivering the hull of a 26m tug as it is towed down the coast for fitting out at Hepworth’s shipyard at Hull. From there it will sail to Ukraine to work in the Caspian oilfields. The contract was worth around £200,000 to Aveco, and a lot of intricate work had to be done since every frame spacing had to be a continuous floor. The company is also in talks with Hepworths about building a tanker with seven tanks at a cost of about £250,000. It would involve building three quarters of the vessel and then floating the incomplete hull to Hepworths for completion and outfitting.

The company is doing a lot of work for the RNLI throughout the UK. It is also hoping to clinch a deal making mooring pontoons for the River Thames in time for the Olympics.