Vigor Industrial - Swan Island Shipyard (Portland, Oregon)

 shipyard, shipbuilding

History:

The Kaiser Company Inc. Swan Island Shipyard was founded in early 1942 with a $23 Million Dollar grant from the Maritime Commission to mass-produce the new T2 Tanker design.

Completed in mid-1942 with 8 shipbuilding ways, the yard laid its first keel on July 1st, 1942 and by the end of World War Two the yard had built 148 tankers for service across the globe. The yard achieved its shortest build time of the war in November 1944, when the tanker SS Fort Stanwix was built, launched and delivered for service in 58 days. During its peak, the yard employed well over 20,000 people working around the clock.

Following the cessation of hostilities, the yard launched its final ship in October 27th, 1945 and following it's delivery on November 21st, 1945 the yard was shut down and much of its infrastructure was liquidated to repay war loans. The property was loaned to the Port of Portland which operated a common-user ship repair facility for over 50 years before the land was sold to Cascade General, Inc.

Today:

Now one of the largest and most complete ship repair facilities on the U.S. West Coast, the integrated facility is owned by Vigor Industrial. On 60 acres along the Willamette River, Vigor offers three dry docks of up to 661 feet long and 30,000 long ton capacity. There is more than 10,000 feet of dedicated pier space, 17 Whirley cranes and a 600-ton gantry crane for fabrication and repair.

Vigor Industrial companies including new-build specialists US Fab and ship repair experts Vigor Marine provide 150,000 square feet—three football fields worth—of fabrication bays, each equipped with overhead cranes and individual work stations, plus another 200,000 square feet of covered, weather-protected workspace.

Our Specialty Finishes subsidiary offers industry-leading SSPC QP1 (portable) and QP3 (shop) certified blasting and coating centers.

Vigor Machine uses a powerful waterjet to cut steel up to 6 in. thick with impeccable precision. Our mills and lathes are computer numeric controlled (CNC) and guided by our expert craftspeople.

Our Shipyard Commerce Center operates a 7,000,000-gallon Ballast Water Treatment Plant to treat non-hazardous wastewater to EPA standards. A holding center in Riverside, CA, allows southwestern customers to deposit wastewater close to home; contents are then combined and taken by tanker Portland. The plant also recycles used oil to reduce demand for new petroleum products by as much as 1.5 million gallons a year.

Also on our yard, we provide space and support for the Swan Island Training Center, teaching welding in a joint venture with Portland Community College. Students learn skills that lead to family-wage jobs at Vigor Industrial companies and elsewhere in the region.

vigorindustrial.com/facilities/portland

For a complete list of ships built here, please see:
shipbuildinghistory.com/history/shipyards/4emergency/ww...