The recently-installed chief executive at Ferguson Marine has revealed his plans to turnaround the nationalised shipyard and “give it a sustainable future”.
David Tydeman spoke to Insider as the Port Glasgow yard passed a milestone by fitting the bow onto Hull 802, one of the two delayed and over-budget ferries destined for CalMac.
In an effort to restore confidence in the company, he explained “four parallel lines of effort” currently underway, with the first objective being to finish the two ships, but “manage them differently”.
Despite costs rising and delivery deadlines being missed since the ferries were commissioned - and Ferguson Marine being rescued out of administration by the Scottish Government in 2019 - Tydeman said he hoped to persuade Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL) to award Ferguson Marine the contract to build a next generation of ferries.
“I think is most sensible for us here to build the seven small ferries that CMAL want - Ferguson has proven experience, it’s something we've already done, and if people could be confident to give us that then actually that would give Ferguson a four year transition period of re-stabilising.”
Tydeman conceded that “realistically, there has got to be some form of tendering process", adding "I imagine it would take us the rest of the year to get us through that - plus we’ve got to win hearts and minds to show we’re back on track with Hull 802”.
The two vessels are already two-and-a-half times over its original budget and about five years late.
A former shipbuilding advisor to the Scottish government, Luke van Beek, claimed last month that the cost of completing the two ferries could be up to £400m and suggested it might be cheaper to scrap the project and start again.
However, Tydeman said he believes the ferries will both be finished next year at a total cost of £206m.
He explained that one of the most important things to sort out after coming in in December was to reconnect CMAL and Ferguson Marine. "We were telling different stories to the Scottish Government about the ambitions of the project - the story coming from ourside was this was ambitious, but achievable, whereas CMAL was saying ‘no it isn't, it needs more time’.”
Tydeman said he met CMAL chief executive Kevin Hobbs in his first weeks to compare notes and work closer together on “one story”. This led to a member of CMAL’s senior team being seconded into Ferguson to take on a programme and operations director role, which made a “huge difference” in cohesion.
The changes also saw Andrew Crossan, senior technical manager and project director at CMAL, join Ferguson’s senior leadership team as the programme and operations director.
The two companies created one single list, instead of having two lists of the same observations, which Tydeman said made the work easier and more efficient.
“I think the key thing is that we're never going to be proud of the process of the way in which Glen Sannox has been put together - it's a five year story since keel laid and you can't recover that, you can't change the sequencing that's been done wrongly,” Tydeman conceded.
He explained that the Glen Sannox had the characteristics of an upgrade project rather than a new build, whereas the as-yet-unnamed Hull 802 was "sitting here, with nothing much inside".
Glen Sannox is currently booked into dry docking for 23 January next year, which would see the vessel leave the yard for trials before being handed over and commissioned. It is also scheduled to be taken down to Dales Marine on 15 July for a summer dry docking to make the “winter dry docking work efficiently”, noted Tydeman.
The more fundamental work being done to Hull 802 means it has the opportunity “to be proud of the process that we run over the next 18 months as well as the final ship”, with everything done in sequence, unlike with the Glen Sannox, which was infamously launched with windows painted on and then installed, as well as numerous other issues.
“I'm confident with those two separate projects - and the two different approaches - that we can restore internal confidence and external," said Tydeman.
The yard is in discussion with Babcock and BAE about subcontracting staff to work on small jobs, while by next year the yard should be in a position to reduce agency workers and contractors, in order to focus on salaried employees.
“We've got three different timelines here, finishing these two vessels, planning for the future and doing some interim work of upgrading small projects," said Tydeman.
Ferguson currently has just under 400 permanent staff, with 270 being hourly paid and 115 salaried.
“We've got an interesting combination with next year's new intake, we'll have 60 apprentices and we've got 40% of the workforce is over 55, with 5% is over 65 - so with careful planning of knowledge transfer from the guys who've been here a long time training up apprentices, we can manage that transition," said Tydeman.
Regardless of decisions on the next set of CalMac ferries, he has plans to try and build wind farm support vessels and offshore patrol vessels at Port Glasgow in the future.
For instance, Ferguson was in discussion with North Star Renewables about developing ships for wind farm projects in which it has been awarded various contracts to design ships for. He reckons that the yard could have 10 to 15 years of work ahead, if it manages to position itself correctly.
Another avenue of work is building vessels for military use, with the Bangladesh Navy revealed last week to be one tender Ferguson is involved in, potentially developing “low spec” offshore patrol vessels.
Tydeman started his career as a trainee Lloyd’s surveyor in Govan, before moving to work in the oil industry building projects on Piper Alpha, while employed by Occidental and on Duncan and Esmond North Sea projects during his time with Hamilton Brothers, and then into the private shipping sector as chief executive at Oyster Marine.
“I enjoyed shipping that in my early years, so when I got the phone call, I thought, yeah, that’s a good way to finish my career," says Tydeman in terms of him taking over from Tim Hair as Ferguson Marine boss at the end of last year.
"I'm committed to get us through this current phase and on to a sustainable future - there is so much work in the pipeline with wind farms and ferries that we ought to be able to position this yard to be part of that."
Don't miss the latest headlines with our twice-daily newsletter - sign up here for free.
