6/28/2024
After reporting on Bancroft24 and its voyage up to Maine, it felt appropriate to continue the narrative on Bancroft’s Marine Division as things are really starting to take shape at the Marine Yard in South Portland.
Multiple upgrades to the buildings and grounds are already underway to make sure this facility is top-notch. The opening in the concrete containment wall (affectionately called the “moat”) is the location where newly fabricated 50-foot-long portable, loading ramps will be installed, which will allow cranes and other equipment to be “walked” on and off the new barge. For the materials and other equipment that cannot be moved off via these ramps, the 150-ton truck crane has been moved down to the site and can easily reach from shore to the barge to load and offload.
As mentioned last week, Bancroft24 is slated to make a stop in Jacksonville, Florida later this week, to pick up a 25-foot, 400 horsepower, twin-screw, truck-able tugboat that will be loaded onto the new barge and brought up to Maine as well. Additionally, the Marine Division (with the assistance of the South Paris Maintenance Shop) recently resurrected truck-able push boat 875, which has been previously used on a number of Bancroft’s dam projects throughout the years. Together, these boats will assist in shifting barges in and around Portland Harbor, as well as at future marine job sites. Lettering the boats and doing some minor painting to include the Bancroft green will be our first mission.
Along with the yard space, a large shop building is also part of the newly acquired property. To better utilize this space, a couple upgrades are already in the works: i) the installation of a waste oil furnace and ii) new lighting. Based on the amount of space the shop provides, wooden dock and float production are among a couple of the possibilities being considered to supplement the marine construction work. We have also been in talks with an international firm that designs and manufactures pre-cast concrete floating docks and wave attenuators (breakers). This company is interested in our new terminal and plans to give us opportunities to be a local manufacturer and distributor for them, which would help expand our footprint in the Marine world that much more.
The arrival of “Bancroft 24” (our 1,360 horsepower, twin-screw, 65’ tugboat), towing “Big Al” (our new 120’x50’ spud barge), in early July will certainly create quite a splash in Portland harbor. Our competition in the marine construction world has known of our waterfront property purchase for several months, but parking this fleet on the pier will put them on notice:
Bancroft is getting into the marine construction business!
