About $11 million in contracts has been awarded to two B.C. shipyards for maintenance work on Canadian Coast Guard vessels.
Canadian Maritime Engineering Ltd. of Victoria has been hired for $200,438 in refit work on the 226-foot-long John P. Tully research and survey ship, based at Patricia Bay.
Seaspan’s Vancouver Drydock Co. Ltd. in North Vancouver won a $9.29-million contract to work on the 272-foot-long Sir Wilfrid Laurier, a high-endurance, multi-tasked vessel. The company also won a contract worth $2.34 million to complete a refit for the offshore fisheries science ship Sir John Franklin, built by Seaspan in 2017.
The Sir Wilfrid Laurier, launched in 1986, will go into drydock for several months to extend its useful life.
The federal government is spending $28 million on seven coast guard ships. Other contracts have been awarded to companies in eastern Canada.