In Conversation
IN CONVERSATION WITH
HEDDLE SHIPYARDS BY LEO RYAN
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ased in Hamilton, Heddle Shipyards has in the past few years become a rising force in Canada’s shipbuilding and repair industry, today possessing the largest number of shipyards and drydocks. In an exclusive interview, Ted Kirkpatrick, director of business development and government relations, comments on bringing back shipbuilding to Ontario, opportunities from the National Shipbuilding Strategy, meeting the challenges of skilled labour shortages and the top issues on his legislative wishlist. Heddle Shipyards has provided shipbuilding and ship repair services for over 30 years. But in recent years the company has significantly expanded. What has driven this evolution? The evolution was initially driven by recognizing an opportunity to expand our market through acquiring the Thunder Bay Shipyard and Port Weller Dry Docks. Until 2016, our operation was limited by our capacity in Hamilton. With the acquisition of Thunder Bay Shipyard in 2016 and the Port Weller Dry Docks in 2017, we acquired assets that can accommodate the largest vessels that transit the Seaway. This opened an entirely new market for us with respect to accommodating seaway max lakers and the larger Canadian Coast Guard and Royal Canadian Navy Ships.
TED KIRKPATRICK DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND GOVERNMENT RELATIONS HEDDLE SHIPYARDS
We also saw an opportunity with the National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS). We knew Hamilton alone would not be sufficient to execute our shipbuilding ambitions, so we had to expand our capabilities by acquiring more extensive ship repair and construction assets. The Port Weller Dry Docks was once Canada’s premier ship construction facility. We realized that Ontario had some unique assets that were vastly underutilized, so we embarked on a path to acquire them and bring them online to support the NSS. For the uninitiated, tell us some of the tasks carried out in Heddle shipyards and what types of ships you service or build. Heddle Shipyards is predominantly a vessel life cycle services provider. This means we do everything from constructing vessels to repairing, maintaining, and recycling them. Most of what we do is steelwork to ensure the integrity of the vessel’s hull and structure and mechanical work to ensure the vessel is operating smoothly. Any repair or construction project also requires various amounts of electrical, painting, and carpentry work, to name just a few activities. We service everything from tugs, barges, ferries, tankers to seaway max cargo vessels and the Canadian Coast Guard fleet. As we grow, we will also be pursuing work for the Royal Canadian Navy. We build workboats, tugs, barges, and passenger and vehicle ferries on the new build side. Our most recent new build projects were a self-propelled 21
