Vandenberg In Political Trouble?

[matts1w]

I'm excited.

Dive the wreck of the Vandenberg all day... then wreck myself at Schooner Wharf Bar all night.

That, my friends, will be a good day.

 

[John_B]

It seems the shipyard was just after a quick profit scheme.


I'm glad they (the shipyward) lost and that also glad the ship didn't go at bid for what they wanted.

I do wonder how willing these guys will be to work on the next artificial reef. It wasn't just a quick profit scheme, they were bidding to make sure they would get paid. The shipyard and the subcontractors that did the work were the ones who are ultimately collecting that $1.3 million.

Yes, its seems that there were exorbitant cost overruns, but a project this size should have had a full-time project manager bird-dogging the project every day to manage those risk factors. Seems to me like a classic case of why the contractor can't manage the project for you, not unless it was a not-to-exceed bid (possibly with performance rewards/penalties clauses).

Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate all the work that has gone into this and hope this will eventually be an awesome dive for us all. But if there are going to be more of these sunk in the Keys, they are going to need to change how these projects are managed.

 

[Buoyant1]

I do wonder how willing these guys will be to work on the next artificial reef. It wasn't just a quick profit scheme, they were bidding to make sure they would get paid. The shipyard and the subcontractors that did the work were the ones who are ultimately collecting that $1.3 million.

Yes, its seems that there were exorbitant cost overruns, but a project this size should have had a full-time project manager bird-dogging the project every day to manage those risk factors. Seems to me like a classic case of why the contractor can't manage the project for you, not unless it was a not-to-exceed bid (possibly with performance rewards/penalties clauses).

Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate all the work that has gone into this and hope this will eventually be an awesome dive for us all. But if there are going to be more of these sunk in the Keys, they are going to need to change how these projects are managed.

Looking at the drawings I have of the Eagle, Thunderbolt and Duane with their sinking dates, I'm curious to know what problems were encountered when those three were scuttled (85, 86, and 87 respectively) vs. the issues that occurred when the Speigel Grove and Oriskany were sunk? Is it overkill by the EPA? Or just mismanagement by the project team at the shipyard?

 

[americanreefer]

I can tell you that anything the EPA wants done is known before you even get possession of the ship, and preparing a ship for a reef is not rocket science, but requires dogged determination, because all the people in postitions of figuring out why you CANNOT do something show up.
Bigger vessels are always a bigger deal because of being high profile projects, and Reefmakers are the best at marketing I have ever seen (best name, bumper stickers, T-shirts, website is really good, heck, they even have a song), but I have always found that press attention brings out the bad with the good. I hate to say mismanangement, but when I was running the preparation of the Spiegel Grove (after the first guy, oceanreefs, david tomlinson, screwed the pooch) I was everywhere troubleshooting on the ship every day, and still have a mental image of the ship, every compartment, space, to the point that I am so intimately familiar with the ship that I can monito progress or the lack thereof.