THE VOICE OF NORTH AMES West VANCOUVER

7% EMPTY. cement: track. jeft. the road at Cotton and Main Tuesday morning. Police say a slick road contributed to the mishap. The truck driver
Was not injured asa result of the accident but a traffic light signal box was damaged.. .

o new ships for NV yard

OF BUILDING FERRIES ON NORTH SHORE

VERSATILE SCUTTLES HOPES

SHIPS WILL no longer be built at the North Vancouver
yard of Versatile Pacific Shipyards Inc. (VPS), the com-
pany’s chairman and chief executive officer announced this

week.

In a statement outlining a major
Versatile reorganization, Peter
Quinn said the company’s North
Vancouver yard, which has a Jong
and proud shipbuilding history,
will instead be used henceforth
primarily fer snip repair work.

New shipbuilding contracts, he
said, will be handled at Versatile’s
Victoria shipyard.

Quinn said the company decided
to overhaul its operation after the
federal government chopped the
long-promised $680-million Polar
Class 8 icebreaker contract in its
February budget.

The project, which had been

INSIDE: &%

awarded to Versatile, would have
created up to 1,000 jobs at Ver-
satile’s North Vancouver and Vic-
toria shipyards over a four-year
construction period.

“In the wake of the federal gov-
ernment’s decision not to proceed
with construction of the Polar 8
icebreaker, we have had to reassess
our position in the industry, our
strengths and our direction,”
Quinn said.

He added that any new ferries

required by the B.C. Ferry Corp.
should be built at Versatile’s Vie-
toria shipyard because it has the
“expertise and organization (o get
the job done on time and on
budget.""

Versatile’s Victoria yard, he
said, had developed the latest in
ship-building techniques in
preparation for building the Polar
8.

The company is currently bid-
ding on the two 85-car ferries re-
quired by the B.C. Ferry Corp.,
and is also prepared to bid on two
470-car super ferries the provincial
government said will also be need-
ed.

Quinn said Versatile expects to
win a contract to ‘lift’? the Queen
of Burnaby ferry later this year.

**We are ready and able to build

NORTH SHORE HOME & GARDEN: 13

the ferries that British Columbia
needs to handle increasing traffic
volumes, using the experience and
expertise the company has devel-
oped over nearly 100 years in the
shipbuilding — businéss,’ said
Quinn.

The announced reorganization
of Versatile follows the closure
earlier this month of the com-
pany’s North Vancouver drafting
division, which resulted in the
layoff of [5 shipyard draftsmen.

Meanwhile, Bob Briere, head
shop steward at Versatile’s North
Vancouver yard, said the current
dismantling of the facility's
number two dry dock will result in
a further erosion of shipyard
workers’ jobs in North Vancouver.

“The dry dock we have left,
number three dry dock, is a very

GIANT. CEDA

big dry dock,” he said. **Number
two wasn't that big, but it was
fairly busy when it was in opera-
tion. Without it the company’s ca-
pabilities will go down. We'll lose
a lot of jobs.”

The dock, he said, was used dur-
ing the Second World War.

“There's quite a history behind
it,’ Briere said, ‘‘and a fot of
money went into it.””

Versatile's North Vancouver
yard was once the centre of B.C.’s
shipbuilding industry.

The modern B.C. Ferries Meet
was built in North Vancouver in
20-year programs during the 1960s,
*70s and ’80s. During the Second
World War, the shipyard
employed over 20,000 workers in
the construction of hundreds of
merchant and naval ships.

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