WESTPORT SHIPYARD, BUILDER of those 164-foot mega-yachts at its plant on Marine Drive in Port Angeles, has sent a team of four people — one from Port Angeles and three from Westport’s sales office in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. — to the Saudi International Boat Show.
The four-day event, which began Wednesday, was held at Al Furusya Marina & Yacht Club in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
This is the second year for the show, which drew more than 37,000 visitors to its maiden event.
Says Helal Saeed Almarri, CEO of the Dubai World Trade Centre, which organized the event:
“Around one-third of the world’s fleet of super-yachts are owned by Middle East residents, many of whom originated from Saudi Arabia, which makes the Saudi International Boat Show the ideal platform for yacht builders to promote their luxury products and services.”
Philip Purcell who heads up the Fort Lauderdale sales office and is vice president of Westport Shipyard, said, “Westport considers the Saudi International Boat Show a major opportunity to build on existing relationships and form new partnerships whilst showcasing the kind of products, customer support and expertise that has earned our brand a loyal global following.”
Katie Wakefield, an administrative assistant at Westport, said team members have reported back to her that the show has been quite busy with a lot of foot traffic — and the anecdotal observation that the region does not appear to be as affected by the economic travails that plague much of the rest of the world.
Since I’m an unabashedly staunch supporter of the economic engine that is the waterfront, here’s hoping the team returns home with a full order book.
Westport’s success at the show translates into living-wage jobs on the North Olympic Peninsula.
Catamaran launched
Joe Beck, who works in the sales department at Armstrong Marine, the aluminum boat fabricator on U.S. Highway 101 midway between Sequim and Port Angeles, said the company just launched Nevisian Spirit.
She is a 45-foot, full-displacement catamaran that was designed by the Canadian naval architect, Scott Jutson.
The boat, which is powered by twin 350-horsepower Cummins diesel engines and seats 49, will be used by the Four Seasons Resort in Nevis, Bahamas, to ferry guests to its complex from the airport in St. Kitts.
Nevisian Spirit was put aboard the heavy-lift transport ship Beluga Elegance in Victoria on Friday for the three-week trip to Port Everglades, Fla.
When the ship arrives Jan. 2, a crew will be standing by to drive the new vessel for the last 1,200 miles of the journey to the Bahamas.
Joe also said that Armstrong folks are as busy as they have ever been — in fact, they have just recently broken ground for the construction of two new buildings.
Both buildings will be situated east of the existing fabrication plant in what is now a popular mud bog.
One of the buildings will be 117 feet by 50 feet and accommodate the need for increased manufacturing capacity.
The second will be 50-foot-square and house the company’s woodworking shop.
In for maintenance
Wednesday morning the articulated tug and barge, Petrochem Trader, a 522-foot petroleum products barge, and her 144-foot pusher tug, Galveston, moored to Port of Port Angeles Terminal 1 north.
According to Chandra “Hollywood” McGoff of Washington Marine Repair, the topside repair company on the waterfront, the company performed routine maintenance on the mechanism that mates the vessels together.
The two vessels left Port Angeles well before daybreak on Thursday morning and are now under way to San Francisco.
Fuel fillings
Songa Nor, a 617-foot cargo ship under way for Newcastle, Australia, pulled into Port Angeles Harbor on Tuesday and was refueled by Tesoro Petroleum.
On Thursday, Tesoro bunkered the 941-foot Alaskan Explorer and the San Francisco-bound Commitment, a Crowley owned articulated tug and barge.
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David G. Sellars is a Port Angeles resident and former Navy boatswain’s mate who enjoys boats and strolling the waterfront.
Items involving boating, port activities and the North Olympic Peninsula waterfronts are always welcome.
E-mail dgsellars@hotmail.com or phone him at 360-808-3202.
His column, On the Waterfront, appears every Sunday.