Jacksonville, Fla. — TOTE Services, LLC, (“TOTE Services”) a subsidiary of TOTE Group, LLC (“TOTE Group”), awarded Philly Shipyard, Inc. (“Philly Shipyard”), the sole operating subsidiary of Philly Shipyard ASA (OSE: PHLY), a contract to construct the fifth National Security Multi-Mission Vessel (NSMV V) for use as a training ship at California State University Maritime Academy in Vallejo, Calif.

Delivery of NSMV V will fulfill the U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration’s (MARAD) vision to recapitalize the training fleet at state maritime academies across the country. These five new, state-of-the-art vessels will help train new, qualified officers needed to crew commercial and government-owned sealift ships during crises and replace current training ships at state maritime academies in New York, Massachusetts, Maine, Texas and California.      

“TOTE Services is proud to work with MARAD and Philly Shipyard to deliver five new, world-class training vessels to support our nation’s maritime academies,” said TOTE Services President Jeff Dixon. “We have a long history of working with the government and are humbled by this opportunity to leverage our wide-ranging knowledge, capabilities and experience to help MARAD execute on its vision to develop this highly-functional national asset designed to fulfill numerous roles.”

An industry leader in vessel services, ship management and marine operations, TOTE Services was selected by MARAD in May 2019 to be the Vessel Construction Manager (VCM) for the NSMV program to ensure the utilization of best practices in commercial ship construction.

Since then, the VCM construct has proven to be an effective model in which the government utilizes commercial best practices and resourcefulness to design and construct vessels that are built by union labor in a U.S. shipyard with U.S.-made steel and U.S.-made engines.    

This new acquisition approach to federal shipbuilding is helping to revitalize the nation’s industrial base and spur economic growth and development in the domestic maritime industry. Equally important, the VCM model has allowed TOTE Services and Philly Shipyard to coordinate closely to meet critical construction milestones for MARAD’s NSMV program throughout the pandemic, supply chain disruptions, economic pressures, and other challenges.

TOTE Services awarded Philly Shipyard a contract to construct the first two of up to five NSMVs (NSMV I and NSMV II) in April 2021. The third and fourth NSMVs (NSMV III and NSMV IV) were ordered in January 2021. This historic program will replace aging training vessels at SUNY Maritime College, Massachusetts Maritime Academy, Maine Maritime Academy and Texas A&M Maritime Academy, and California State University Maritime Academy, respectively. These ships will be owned by MARAD.

The first NSMV is scheduled to be delivered to SUNY Maritime College in 2023 with delivery of the fifth NSMV to Cal Maritime in 2026.