Shipyard owners set new course: heddle marine makes entry into upper lakes with ambitious plans.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: Thunder Bay

A Hamilton-based ship repair company is poised to bring a dormant Thunder Bay shipyard back to life.

Heddle Marine has entered new waters in the upper Great Lakes following its acquisition of the former Lakehead Marine and Industrial from a holding company last June.

Shaun Padulo, Heddle's marketing and sales manager, expects activity to pick up this spring on the 42-acre site in the city's north end.

The company is close to signing a contract to bring in marine-related work to the Shipyard Road facility for the first time since the former owners of the yard filed for bankruptcy in 2014.

"The first project that we've got slated is coming up fairly shortly," said Padulo.

Through a strategic partnership with Fabmar Metals, a local Thunder Bay fabrication company, they've rechristened the shipyard as a startup company, Current River Holdings.

Fabmar will move its 25 employees to the site to run the operation for Heddle, said Padulo.

Based on Heddle's employment projections, the yard could ramp up to as many as 80 employees for large projects, but Padulo conceded it wouldn't happen overnight.

The expansive fabrication and machine shops need new equipment and energy-efficient heating.

The shops were reduced to bare bones following an auction sale of equipment in 2014, but luckily, Padulo said Fabmar president Dale Ryynanen purchased much of it and will moving it back to the site.

Heddle will augment it with more state-of-the-art machinery like CNCs, and discussions have been held with Confederation College to offer apprenticeship opportunities for students.

The 748-by-98 foot permanent dry dock needs to be repaired and lengthened.

Padulo said the extra room would allow them to change out propeller shafts on standard 730-foot Seaway vessels.

The shipyard is part of Thunder Bay's rich marine legacy, starting out as Western Dry Dock in 1909. Over the decades and through successive ownerships, the yard launched Great Lakes freighters, naval vessels, coast guard icebreakers, and passenger steamships.

For 30 years, Heddle Marine has performed ship repair and heavy industrial fabrication on Hamilton's waterfront where their three floating dry docks perform refit work on freighters, tugboats, coast guard patrol vessels, passenger ferries, submarines, and historic ships.

The company expanded to Atlantic Canada in 2012 where they fabricate components for Exxon-Mobil Canada, the lead partner in the Hebron Project, an offshore heavy oil field in the Jeanne...