Experience is our way of setting the bar higher
Seaward Marine Services completed ongoing intake improvements to the Dominion Power Surry Power Station culminating in all eight intake structures to receive new stop-log seal plate assemblies. For each intake structure over 18 mechanics and divers along with Dominion Power employees and supplemental staff in support participated in the removal of the old seal plate and trash-rack retaining channel. The removal and replacement required 13 shifts totaling over 2800 man-hours to complete this process.
Seaward divers installed the new seal plate assembly by core drilling and installing approved inserts with underwater adhesive compound. Divers then completed a foreign materials sweep by cleaning the trash racks and vacuuming away all debris from the intake structures. With support of Seaward Marine personnel, Dominion employees then lowered the intake structure stop-logs into the new stop-log guides to ensure proper fit and a positive seal.
Posted on: 28/Mar/2014
Cecil C. Achord
Seaward Marine Services was tasked to perform a general inspection, a Visual Inspection, a Video Inspection and an Ultrasonic Thickness Measurement Survey, using DataScanSM, of an Aboveground Storage Tank (AST) at one of the country’s largest nuclear power facilities. The weeklong project with mobilization from Seaward Marine’s Norfolk Virginia office included entry into the 300,000 gallon AST by divers dressed in total enclosure suits to ensure no contamination of the tanks cargo. Because of tank depth, in excess of the no decompression limits, under Seaward Safe Diver Standards divers had to change out at regular intervals ensuring diver safety.
The first order of business was to vacuum sediments from the bottom of the liquid filled tank to ensure a thorough visual and video inspection of the tanks interior surfaces. Visual inspection revealed a faulty tank level indicator system which was promptly repaired and calibration procedures performed.
Next, divers installed a reference grid system within the tank in which to perform a very accurate ultrasonic thickness survey using DataScanSM. The ultrasonic thickness survey, performed on a one foot by one foot grid pattern producing a nearly 100% probability of detection, collected over 530,000 individual thickness readings, several of which were below the thinning criteria established prior to the inspection. The thickness data will be used to formulate repair or replacement estimates and on subsequent surveys to determine tank life cycle estimates.
The inspection and survey performed by American Society of Non-Destructive Testing (ASNT) certified personnel and procedures came in under schedule and under budget allowing the tank and facility to continue with uninterrupted operational scheduling. A second tank, at the same facility is scheduled for survey during the plants next outage.
Seaward Marine’s DataScanSM Ultrasonic Measurement System provides a thorough analysis of the condition of metal in the region of the measurement, as opposed to single-point readings of metal thickness. Seaward’s development of an automated system that compensates for roughness so that all areas of the reading location can be quickly and accurately measured.
Posted on: 27/Mar/2014
Cecil C. Achord
Seaward Marine Services was tasked to perform an general inspection, a Visual Technical Inspection (VTI) and shaft to stave bearing measurements (STSR). The period of performance was February 3-17, 2014. Seaward personnel arrived in Everett WA with clear skies and average temperatures for that area. During the week, a Pacific Northwest storm arrived dropping day time temperatures to 19 degrees with heavy snow flurries and water temperatures dropped to 43 degrees. Divers continued to perform their tasks under these conditions and during the initial inspection of the running gear, damage was found on a propeller and shaft. The propeller damage was included in a VTI report and submitted to NSWCCD for review and repair recommendations. In accordance with a NAVSEA 00C directive and CNAP TYCOM direction, the bare metal on the shaft was tasked for repair utilizing Hycote 151. All damage was repaired and documented in accordance with NAVSEA 00C contract requirements and all work completed on time allowing the ship to resume their operational schedule.
Posted on: 26/Feb/2014
Cecil C. Achord
Seaward Marine Services was contracted with Greenpeace (Amsterdam) to perform a full hull cleaning of the SY RAINBOW WARRIOR in San Diego, December 27, 2013. The Ship painted with ECOSPEED; an environmentally safe underwater ship hull coating system designed to be extremely durable and to conform to IMO’s convention on the Control of Harmful Anti-fouling Systems. Seaward Marine’s pre-hull inspection indicated that marine growth was 50% with heavy oysters and hard growth. Seaward Marine utilized the SCAMP multi-brush hull cleaning machine with a modified brush to remove the marine growth. The paint scheme held up well to the cleaning effort. The Ship reported that speed and performance were realized as a direct result of the cleaning.
Posted on: 07/Jan/2014
Cecil C. Achord
Seaward would like to thank the following members for their service:
Joey Walters, Noel McCully, and Stephen Spruill for thirty years of service. Thomas Wright, Christina Woodrum, and Janice Arakawa for twenty years of service. David Samuelson for 16,000 hours dive time working with Seaward. Stanley Wujek and Michael Charles for 12,000 hours dive time working with Seaward. William Greenwood Sr for 8,000 hours dive time working with Seaward. Eric Stephenson for 4,000 hours dive time working with Seaward. Thank you for your continuing service to our company and to our customers.
Posted on: 14/Dec/2013
Cecil C. Achord
Seaward Marine Services has completed its third and newest dive platform for 2013. These dive platforms are fully integrated units utilized by Seaward for all underwater services and can support up to four divers along with supporting equipment; a 2.5 ton crane, three 10 gpm hydraulic power packs, one SCAMP multi-brush cleaning platform, up-to two 2500 psi waterblasters, one 10,000 psi hydroblaster, underwater cameras with CCTV, and other diver hand held equipment.
All of Seaward's dive platforms have water heaters for cold weather diving and redundant air systems and communication systems for safety.
Seaward San Diego completed the Mobile 1 and 2 dive platforms the summer of 2013 and Norfolk completed the Mobile 4 platform in November.
Posted on: 27/Nov/2013
Cecil C. Achord
Seaward Marine M/V COASTAL PRIDE divers performed a cleaning and ABS Underwater Inspection in Lieu of Drydocking (UWILD) of the dry dock SPEEDE. A UWILD is an alternative to dry-docking inspection and is carried out by an ABS approved diver under the watch of an attending surveyor, it includes all items normally examined if the vessel were dry-docked. Specific frame areas of the hull along with the 12 ballast inlet sea chests and 3 firemain seachests were cleaned and inspected as directed by the ABS inspector. All work was monitored topside through closed circuit video. The inspection was documented on the Divers Hull Inspection Data report (DHID) along with video recording of conditions of the underwater hull.
SPEEDE is the only ABS and US NAVY certified dry dock on the East Coast and Seaward is proud to be a part of this evolution.
Posted on: 17/Nov/2013
Cecil C. Achord
In preparation for the 2013 website redesign, Seaward Marine Services, Inc. commissioned Parroco Production Group, Inc. to make a set of promotional videos for us. These videos are now placed throughout the site and hosted by Vimeo, but we have also placed all of those videos on our youtube channel.
Here is the link to our channel:
Seaward Marine Services, Inc. Official Youtube Channel
To save you time, we have also embeded our promo video playlist below for your enjoyment:
Posted on: 01/Nov/2013
Cecil C. Achord
Seaward divers were called into action in support of the “TURBO” activation of M/V CAPE DOUGLAS (T-AKR-0520) by Marine Transport Inc. “TURBO” activation is a no-notice exercise used to assess a Ready Reserve Force ships overall readiness in support of DOD requirements. Seaward mobilized a crew from Jacksonville FL to Charleston SC then completed an underwater hull inspection, sea chest cleaning, and hull cleaning using the SCAMP multibrush platform which can clean approximately 450 ft2/min depending on the extent of fouling. Divers completed all work within a 16 hour period.
Posted on: 03/Oct/2013
Cecil C. Achord
AIRLANT tasked Seaward Marine Services to complete underwater hull cleaning and Lamp Ray hull survey on the USS EISENHOWER (CVN-69) before her scheduled docking planned incremental availability (DPIA) at Norfolk Naval Shipyard. This effort consisted of divers cleaning the underwater hull using SCAMP, cleaning of the propellers and running-gear, cleaning of all seachest openings and shaft stave bearing clearance readings with video. The Lamp Ray hull survey is performed by a hull crawling ROV with acoustic tracking systems. The Lamp Ray platform reads plate thickness, coating thickness, and cathodic potential while sending video with laser dimensional gauging. All work was completed within a 15 day period.
The CVN-69 Maintenance Program Manager passed along the following comment to Project Manager Dean Womack
“Dean, please convey to your team what a phenomenal job they performed on the hull cleaning of CVN 69. The condition of the hull in the dry dock has received uniform praise from everyone who has inspected it. Your efforts will greatly facilitate the preservation that will be performed during this availability.”
Posted on: 02/Oct/2013
Cecil C. Achord
