Oregon university issues research ship construction tender

The design phase for the project to replenish the United States academic fleet is now complete and the RFI was issued on 2 May.

“The RFI issued is a chance for us to make final tweaks in the preliminary design and to open up a dialogue with the industry about the project,” said Demian Bailey, Oregon State University’s former marine superintendent and co-leader of the project.

He added: “Once we issue the RFP this summer, it will become more difficult to alter the design or other project documents.”

In January 2013, the National Science Foundation selected Oregon State as the lead institution to finalise the design and coordinate the construction of the vessel.

The design phase has been completed by The Glosten Associates, a naval architecture firm based in Seattle, and the RFI is a chance to generate market interest and to get feedback from industry on the design and other project documents.

OSU plans to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) in two phases beginning this summer – a technical phase to establish a competitive pool of qualified shipyards and a cost phase to elicit vessel cost proposals.

The new ship will differ greatly from the R/V Oceanus, built in 1975 and operated by OSU, and its sister ships, Endeavor, operated by the University of Rhode Island, and Wecoma (retired), according to Clare Reimers, a professor in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and project co-leader.

Mr Reimers concluded: “This class of ships will enable researchers to work much more efficiently at sea because of better handling and stability, more capacity for instrumentation and less noise.”

“The design also has numerous ‘green’ features, including an optimized hull form, waste heat recovery, LED lighting, and variable speed power generation.”