Swiftships

Swiftships, LLC
legal form	LLC
founding	1942
Seat	Morgan City , Louisiana ,
management	Shehraze Shah ( CEO )
Branch	shipbuilding
Website	www.swiftships.com

Swiftships LLC is an American shipbuilding company that has existed since 1942, albeit under different names . It specializes in specialty ships and boats: offshore utilities , crew boats, patrol boats , swift boats , coast guard boats , minehunters , landing craft , rocket and drone recovery boats , high speed interceptors, etc.

history

Started as Sewart Seacraft

The company's origin was Sewart Machine Works , a mechanical engineering company founded by Fred Sewart in Berwick , Louisiana in 1942 , which became Sewart Seacraft in 1952 . Sewart Seacraft specifically built light supply boats for the oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico . When the US Department of Defense requested a light patrol boat in 1965 that could be used on Vietnam's extensive waterway network, the shipyard received the order based on its experience with aluminum boats and began building the first Fast Patrol Craft in mid-July 1965 . The first four 23 t units were delivered to the US Navy and put into service within 40 days . The boats proved to be very fit for duty and were soon referred to as "Swift Boats". In the years 1965 to 1973 the shipyard delivered a total of 167 Swift Boats of the variants Mark I (104 boats 1965-1967), Mark II (30 boats 1968/69) and Mark III (33 boats 1969/70 and 1972/73).

Expansion as Swiftships Inc.

The shipyard was founded in 1967 by the American conglomerate Teledyne bought, but as early as 1969 in a management buy-out re-sold to its current management, the company in Swift Ships, Inc. renamed and the shipyard of Berwick on the opposite side of the Atchafalaya River , a estuary of the Mississippi , according to Morgan City , Louisiana, moved.

In 1979 Swiftships began to expand, mostly through the acquisition of several small shipyards, which were continued as independent departments:

Swiftships Morgan City: construction of offshore oil field utilities, ferries, military vehicles, special purpose boats and pleasure boats with aluminum hulls ;
Swiftships Champion, in Pass Christian, Mississippi : Construction of larger steel-hulled ships (purchased in 1982, closed in 1984);
Swiftships Lafitte, in Marrero , Louisiana: repair yard for ships up to 40 m (125 feet ) in length;
Swiftships Freeport, in Freeport , Texas : Construction of a repair yard in 1981 for ships up to 3500 t;
Mangone Swiftships, of Houston , Texas: Construction of major steel-hulled offshore utility (purchased in 1981, closed in 1982);

Swiftships also formed a joint venture in Singapore with Maroil Engineers & Shipbuilders (Pte) Ltd. for the construction of special ships for military purposes and oil field suppliers.

Turbulence and change of ownership

The shipbuilding crisis of the early 1980s, caused by the rapid expansion of shipyard capacities in East Asia and exacerbated by the oil price crisis of 1979 , hit Swiftships Inc., which had been expanding at the worst, and it was founded in 1982, with around 800 employees in four shipyards at the time Acquired conglomerate UNC Resources Inc. in Falls Church ( Virginia ).

In November 1985, UNC sold the Swiftships shipyards to a group of four investors, which by 2004 gradually became wholly owned by Calvin J. LeLeux. In 2002 Swiftships ran into financial difficulties and was almost taken over by competitor Conrad Industries Inc. in Morgan City. However, the independence could be preserved through a restructuring , and from 2004 the company acted as Swiftships Shipbuilders, LLC .

present

The most recent restructuring took place in September 2012, when LeLeux formed the Swift Group LLC with the ICS Marine LLC of the brothers Shehraze and Khurram Shah, under whose roof the shipyard, now functioning as Swiftships LLC , was reorganized and still exists today. LeLeux became Chairman, his son Jeffery President, Shehraze Shah CEO and Khurram Shah CSO.

Swiftships continues to do business well with the Pentagon . In October 2015, a contract with the US Navy was extended, according to which Swiftships is to expand and continue to operate the repair yard for twelve patrol boats built by Swiftships for Iraq at the Umm Qasr naval base .

29.7217 -91.209Coordinates: 29 ° 43 ′ 18 " N , 91 ° 12 ′ 32" W.