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The story
Seaspan, as it is known today, is the product of a series of acquisitions and mergers in the coastal marine transportation and shipbuilding/ship repair business. Seaspan was created in 1970 by the merger of two prominent coastal towing firms: Vancouver Tug Boat Company (formed in 1898 by Harry A Jones) and Island Tug & Barge (formed in 1924 by Harold Elworthy). In addition to being the largest tug and barge operation on the lower coast, Vancouver Tug also owned Vancouver Shipyards. In 1968 or 1969, Vancouver Tug was acquired by the construction firm Dillingham Corporation, while Island Tug & Barge was acquired by Genstar Ltd. in 1969. The following year, Genstar joined with Dillingham to merge Island Tug and Vancouver Tug into a new corporation, Seaspan International Ltd. (In 1993 the name "Island Tug and Barge" was sold to the Shields family, of Shields Navigation, and the current Island Tug and Barge is not affiliated with Seaspan.)
Another prominent branch of the family tree was C H Cates & Sons Towing, generally known as Cates Towing, which was the primary shipdocking tug outfit in the Port of Vancouver for much of the 20th Century. Captain Charles Henry Cates arrived from Machias, Maine in 1885 and built the first cargo-handling wharf on the North Vancouver waterfront. He expanded into boatbuilding and repair and his tugs towed barges of building stone and assisted ships in Burrard Inlet. In 1913 he formed C H Cates Towing, then joined with his three sons, all master mariners, to incorporate the company as CH Cates and Sons Limited in 1921.
Vancouver Shipyard was founded in 1902 at the foot of Denman Street in Vancouver's Coal Harbour. Primarily a builder of small fishing and pleasure boats, the company built two minesweepers for the Royal Canadian Navy during the Second World War. It was acquired by Vancouver Tug in 1954. In 1968 or 1969, both Vancouver Tug and Vancouver Shipyards were acquired by Dillingham Corporation and moved to their present site at the foot of Pemberton Avenue in North Vancouver, where a larger shipyard was established. Since that time the company has constructed, outfitted, or converted 192 tugs, barges and ferries at the shipyard.
Seaspan acquired many of the assets of the former Versatile Pacific Shipyards in two separate transactions. First, Seaspan and Allied Shipbuilders formed a partnership and, with assistance from both Federal and Provincial governments, created Vancouver Drydock Company to acquire the floating drydocks and some onshore facilities in North Vancouver from the defunct firm. Seaspan later acquired Allied's interest in the company.
Meanwhile, in 1994 Vancouver Shipyards (Esquimalt) Ltd. (now Victoria Shipyards) was created at the Esquimalt Graving Dock to fill the void left when the Yarrows shipyard in Esquimalt went bankrupt. Since then, Victoria Shipyards has become prominent in refitting and repair of cruise ships and vessels of the Royal Canadian Navy, including life-extension servicing of the five Halifax-class frigates based at CFB Esquimalt and the four Victoria-class submarines. It built eight Orca-class patrol vessels for the Royal Canadian Navy, constructed over two dozen search and rescue lifeboats for the Canadian Coast Guard, and assembled and launched the newest Seabus, the Burrard Pacific Breeze.
Chronological history of Seaspan
( except where noted)
1970 - Seaspan International Ltd is created.
1972 - Seaspan acquires F.M. Yorke & Sons Ltd.
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1973 - Genstar purchased Dillingham's interest and obtained full ownership of Seaspan.
1977 - Seaspan acquires Gulf of Georgia Towing.
1980 - Marine Petrobulk Ltd (50% owned by Seaspan) is created to provide fuelling services to vessels in the ports of Vancouver, New Westminster, Victoria, Nanaimo, Kitimat and Prince Rupert.
1986 - Imasco Ltd. acquires Genstar and gains controlling interest in Seaspan, then sells Seaspan to McLuan Capital Group later that year.
1992 - Dennis Washington makes his first investment in British Columbia's marine industry by purchasing C. H. Cates & Sons Towing and its subsidiary Seaforth Towing. This is when Washington Marine Group was first formed.
1995 - Washington acquires Norsk Towing from Fletcher Challenge.
1996 - Washington purchases Seaspan.
1997 - Washington purchases Kingcome Navigation from MacMillan Bloedel. Kingcome's roots go back to 1912 when it was formed to tow logs from logging camps to the paper mill in Powell River, British Columbia.
1998 - Washington purchases the rail and truck ferry service of Coastal Marine Operations from the Canadian Pacific Railway; it becomes a subsidiary of Seaspan and is renamed Seaspan Coastal Intermodal.
1999 - Seaspan, Cates, Seaforth, Norsk and Kingcome are all amalgamated into Seaspan International. Dennis Washington sets up Washington Marine Group with separate divisions for towing, shipbuilding and ship repair, coastal intermodal, and bunkering services.
2010 - Vancouver Shipyards is shortlisted for the Federal Government's National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS). The program, worth CAD$35 billion, is planned to build replacement ships for the Royal Canadian Navy and Canadian Coast Guard over a 30-year period. Two Canadian shipyards will be selected, one to build combat vessels, the other non-combat vessels.
2011 - In a corporate restructuring, Washington Marine Group is renamed Seaspan Marine Corporation; the shipbuilding, coastal ferries and bunkering services become subsidiaries of the towing division.
2011 - As the winning bidder of the $8 billion non-combat package of a $35 billion federal shipbuilding contract on 19 October 2011, Seaspan Marine will build seven and possibly eight vessels for the Canadian Coast Guard and Department of National Defence. These will include scientific research vessels, fisheries vessels, polar icebreaker CCGS Imnaryuaq, and two support vessels for the Royal Canadian Navy.
2012 – Seaspan's Vancouver Shipyards commences the $170 million Shipyard Modernization Project in preparation for federal shipbuilding contracts under the NSS program.
2014 – Canada's largest permanent gantry crane arrives at Seaspan's Vancouver Shipyards. The crane weighs in at 300 tonnes, stands 80 metres (260 ft) high and spans 76 metres (249 ft).
2018 - Victoria Shipyards along with Davie and Halifax Shipyards share a $7 billion contract to maintain and repair the Halifax-class frigates and will be responsible for the five frigates based at CFB Esquimalt.
From Wikipedia’s article on Seaspan ULC, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4