Hacker News Reader

Comment by throe37848 | Hacker News Reader

Does USA even have civilian dry docks to build ships? I thought everything was outsourced to Korea.

I know it can build military vessels, but at horribly slow pace. Australia will get their nuclear submarines some time in 2040. I can not imagine building civilian nuclear ice breakers in US.

View on HN

Yes. The NASSCO shipyard in San Diego. I worked there as a ship welder for a while after the first .com crash, and two of the three ships I worked on were civilian.

Also Aker in Philadelphia. US law requires ships in domestic trade to be built in the US so there is a market for new builds.

>Does USA even have civilian dry docks to build ships?

The article was about getting new ice breakers for the Coast Guard, a branch of the US military.

US shipbuilding is uncompetitive because of the Jones act. They literally don't have to compete because ships that travel between American ports have to by law be built in the US.

Plenty. Newport News, Puget Sound, Portland, San Diego.

But Korea is operating at a much, much grander scale and scope. Like having a chain of 7 respectable burger shops vs. McDonalds.

And building ships isn't even that hard... Like a really nice passenger ships takes what 2 or 3 years?

Major difference between building a cruise ship and a polar ice breaker.

Yes, the later is much smaller and simpler...

I guess simpler the same way a tractor is simpler than a mini van...

There's Gunderson Marine in Portland, OR.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com