Hello and welcome to The Yacht Channel. Today i'll be having a conversation with my friend
Chuck Levert, who is the yacht manager at Tampa Ship which is this yard here. You'll have a link
to that if you want to see it. That is a big commercial facility in Tampa Florida and what is
less known about it is that it is currently being used by a lot of the largest yachts
for doing major refits and Chuck has an interesting history that he'll tell us about
that crosses over between the commercial world and the yacht world. My attention was drawn to the
operation in Tampa and to the Chouest Group because of the capabilities of their offshore
supply vessels and their adaptability to be converted into world-class expedition yachts. So
let's get into the conversation with Chuck Levert. Cello Chuck welcome to the YACHT
CHANNEL and where are you today? I'm based in East Hampton for the summer
and it gives me easy access to Sag Harbor especially 10-15 minutes away . Chuck,
what I wanted to do is talk today about is Tampa Ship and all of the things that are connected
and going on around Tampa Ship I work for Edison Chouest Offshore but one of my one of my
hats that I wear is business development. I guess sales and marketing for Tampa Ship
which is a shipyard we acquired in Tampa in the port of Tampa Bay mainly to service our
own business. The four dry docks that we have at Tampa Ship are deep enough and big enough to do
just about anything we need as far as new builds, vessel repair.
So what we're looking at here this is just one of the dry docks? Well, actually you're looking
at two. So on the right is our dry dock number four which goes into that building. We currently
have a 92 meter vessel under construction in a dry dock inside that building,
so it's an incredible facility. You have a lot of yacht experience in your past.
I grew up in a boating family and even before got out of college I started yachting, when I
was in college. And because of that, because of your connections back into the yacht industry,
this facility, which probably has been pretty much 100 percent dedicated to commercial activities,
until your involvement and now well we're fortunate right now. We have a project that we're
just wrapping up in the yard that is not, you know covered in secrecy. We more often than not, when
yachts come into the yard we're restricted in what we can talk about with NDAs. So in
some ways it's the best kept, you know big yacht company, best kept secret in the business because
we can't talk about a lot of what we do and i would say as somebody that sometimes is seeking
places to get service done on large yachts- that opportunities for Id say 75-80 meters or over
on the U.S. East coast are quite limited. There just aren't a lot of options and you have been a
hidden asset until recent years. Probably now is being discovered. Certainly as far as tonnage,
even probably in linear feet , the most active segment of the yacht business has been the 70 to
I don't even know what the biggest boat is now. The ones that get up near the 300-foot range,
that these are not toys. These are ships and they have to be constructed
to a class and specification that is identical to the commercial hulls. Well it's an interesting
point, we have a a a partner in Norway the Ulstein family, we have a fleet of vessels
that we operate in the North Sea - Island Offshore and a lot of those European systems
are are the same systems that we see on some of the European built yachts
and further to that, yachtsmen marvel when they see azipods and diesel-electric and
things that are considered to be new technology in the yachting industry and these are not new
technology for the commercial builders. Yachts have started using azipods and even hybrid
systems but these are systems, diesel electric, propulsion systems have been in offshore supply
vessels for close to 20 years. So Chuck i sold this vessel, it's a 303 foot NOAA ship built
by the U.S. government and it had four diesel generators, it had two large Westinghouse motors,
it would cruise at 20 knots. It topped out at 22 knots with an 18 000 mile range. So
this is a 50 year old vessel. Certainly in terms of technology, performance and capabilities,
the government and commercial vessels have been the leaders. And then with the implementation of
a dynamic positioning requirements the systems have gotten so much more sophisticated
with marine technologies. Our company that does integrated bridge monitoring or navigation
communication monitoring control ,alarm systems, dynamic positioning systems, all proprietary
systems including the remote monitoring system that we monitor our vessels 24-7. we have already
installed systems on Lurssen yachts, we installed the Turquoise Yacht and the 77 meter has a full
Chouest Marine Technology integrated bridge system including a DP system. And that sort
of brings us to my favorite subject which is conversions of offshore commercial vessels
into exploration yachts. And the yacht industry, the main designers, have decided that
expedition and exploration yachts are in vogue. What naturally follows is the possibility
of instead of building a boat from scratch, which is always possible, but to take an existing,
very capable offshore boat and convert it into an expedition yacht. You and I have had
this conversation many times, Paul. The pla tform for a conversion is an excellent one,
especially ,you know I'm going to toot our horn a little bit, the Chouest boats which
we went to a more efficient hall design many years ago to offer vessels that were more efficient
through the water. So the hulls have more shape to them. The latest models have bulbous bows
and these vessels are designed to work in any weather for long periods of time carrying heavy
cargo and when you design a yacht that has the capability to go anywhere for long periods of time
and and as you know they want to carry more and more cargo not just liquid cargo like fuel and
also submarines multiple tenders fully commercial helicopter pads, garages to
store these, if you will, toys requires a lot of deck space a lot of load capacity.
But even with additional superstructure and all the toys on board,
you do not come anywhere near the load capacity of these hulls they're designed that's what they're
designed for - they're designed to carry heavy loads and go long distances and be self sufficient
for weeks on end. Right with no corner of the world off limits we even have supply boats with
ice-class , full ice class. This is sort of an interesting story which will lead into Gresham's
more sophisticated vision of this. Tell us about this little drawing Boats International has a
conference every year super yacht conference and one of the things that they challenged the
naval architects and yacht design attendees to a design challenge. They got a description of a
gentleman who was, I think, he was a younger gentleman, he had dogs, he was interested in
actual tilt wing rotor aircraft, yes there it is yep, so there was a list
of things that this fictitious person was interested in. And they were challenged
to take an existing supply boat and convert it into what they envisioned his dream boat was. And
so they're all divided up into teams and sat down at tables and they start drawing right and
Steve Gresham won the competition. So this this is on an existing hull, it's a 220 foot
supply boat. It was originally built in 1998. So here's a more sophisticated rendering of that
little drawing. So he took the concept to the next level here, right?So
I sent him even more information about the vessel and this is his vision of a full conversion. If
one were to do this conversion here, they could do it in your shipyard. How long would it take you to
convert one of these? So I'll give you some ranges. I mean we most often, you know we're
presented with a lot of these types of questions . For taking an existing Chouest supply boat and
converting it , and it ranges from people who want somewhat of a kind of a commercial finished
interior, more of a utilitarian vessel to possibly support a yacht or just the requirements for
yacht level interioraren't there. They want a platform for their expeditions helicopters, toys,
submarines, tenders, fish boats what have you, basic conversion we can do in 12 months. You know
the interiors and the craftsmen involved in the conversion can be all in-house personnel. We build
ships at Tampa Ship- we've built several of our 90 meter vessels there and the interiors on a modern
offshore supply boat are pretty impressive. You've seen them. I've taken you on, they are, I call
them Marriott quality or better and those 90 meter vessels, you turn those out how quickly? From
start to finish do you do a 90 meter at Tampa. We were launching a 90 meter PSV at Tampa Ship
about every three or four months and start to finish we could build one in 12 months.
That's impressive. That's building in a series, you know I mean. That's when you're building,
when you're launching one every three or four months and you've got, basically, it's almost
assembly line production. Right, they're all the same. You're building one after another,
so there's lots of things that can add six months to the process here, six more months there and
I think a conversion 12 to 24 months. One of the other advantages that you seem to have when we've
done some bidding with you, is that you do so many of the tasks in-house. You don't have a
lot of subs coming in and out of the shipyard. No very few. We design and engineer the boats
ourselves. We build them in our own shipyards and the welders, the machinists, the carpenters the
electricians, the integrated bridge systems, the hvac systems all are in-house. Your company ends
up operating these vessels that you build. Correct we own and operate them. We have a fleet of about
200, well it's over 250 vessels around the world, that are mostly oil and gas. But we have
fleet of tugs that work for the Navy that work for Alaska pipeline terminal and Valdez. We have
recently there was an unfortunate incident in San Diego where there was a Navy vessel on fire,
if you notice those orange tugs spraying water on the fire those were our tugs.
And you train your own crews. I've pulled up this video which I love ,where you
have a simulated helicopter turnover in the water. Right that's training which
everybody flying offshore is required to take the heli training you have to be able to escape
and you're watching it right there- the guys have to be able to get themselves
out of the helicopter. So i dare say not too many ship builders have that capability. And there's
not only heli training but there's simulators. We actually have two full simulation rooms where you
can have two active simulators going on at the same time. Another interesting point about the
the big yachts and the owners during this Covid 19 epidemic, a lot of them are seeking refuge
on their boats right and not getting off. I know of three owners who at the beginning of
the pandemic iIguess took refuge on their boats and stayed there - have not left the boats
and not even to visit short quick shore visit. Some of them were down islands one of them that's
a boat that was supposed to come to Tampa for dry docking and the owner was on board with his family
and stayed on board. I believe stayed on board for the crossing going back as well and a fairly
well-known boat up here Gene Machine, gentleman is on board and he's, from what I understand, he's
has a team of his scientists on board and they're working on a rapid test for covid 19.
But Rising Sun came through and same thing, they were all on board and headed to Maine I think.
That's where they are now and right now Quantum of Solace , Fountainhead, Sixth Sense, Kisses, Scout,
Lioness , Saccara, Unbridled, Dreamboat - all have been through Sag Harbor last couple of months. So
have we missed anything? Most people don't put it all together, they don't realize that
we have in companies that I represent for the family to the yachting industry
sea, land, mechanical, hvac systems, we just did a huge project we mentioned earlier that
we couldn't talk about. A lot of vessels that uh come into Tampa Ship, but we have a vessel there
a 72 meter Benetti that a lot of people remember as Reverie now called Freedom and
they've been in the yard for a couple of months. We did a big project we installed a brand new pair
of quantum dynofoil stabilizers, the first ever pair installed by the way. And I had to replace
a 40-foot section of hull on each side to give the hull the structural stability for all of the new
forces that these new stabilizers put on the hull. Ended up being quite a project and
the captain and the manager of the boat were very very happy. Well thank you so much for taking the
time to talk with me today and we will get the word out on our podcast and it will have links
to reach you back at the shipyard. And we will iook forward to checking in with you in the future
as exciting things happen there. Thanks. That concludes today's podcast. You will find
links below to the shipyard in Tampa and also links to some of these videos that we used for
illustration and a link to a website where you can find more information
about converting commercial vessels into expedition yachts and we look forward to
seeing you on the next channel podcast be sure to subscribe and we will see you soon.