A factory trawler built for US harvester Fishermen's Finest moved closer to hitting the water thanks to the passage of a Senate bill that would waive it from limitations on the amount of foreign steel used in its construction.
The 264-foot America's Finest was built at Washington State's Dakota Shipyard at a cost of $75 million, making it the largest private shipbuilding investment in more than a decade. Fishermen's Finest had planned for the vessel, part of the Amendment 80 fleet, to harvest in the Bering Sea.
In an oversight, however, around 10 percent of the vessel's hull was made from steel imported from The Netherlands -- a violation of the US Jones Act of 1936, which has a limit of 1.5 percent of foreign steel.
The Senate bill, known as SB. 140, was broadly to reauthorize the US Coast Guard, but a provision included at the request of US Senator Maria Cantwell specifically sought the exemption for Fishermen's Finest.
Fishermen's Finest assembled a group, the Save Our Ship Coalition, to lobby Congress to exempt the vessel from the Jones act, including Marel, Optimar, NetSystems, Haarslev, Aleutian Spray Fisheries, Nichimo and dozens of others in the shipbuilding, marine and harvesting sectors.
The bill will now head to the House of Representatives for a vote.
