Chinese Newbuildings

[The Oz]

Having had the opportunity to review a number of surveyors reports on 6 month old Chinese newbuildings I can honestly report that a number of shipyards are producing vessels which will not last 15 years, with shoddy workmanship, poor quality steel, downright dangeorus electrics and no spares on board.

Recently a vessel arrived with 87 deficiencies including leaking hatch covers. The vessel is six months old!

Anyone else come across such poor quality shipbuilding?

[Brian Cawkwell]

There is a Saying:-

You Pay For What You Get  :lol:

[Phil English]

It's fair to say that some of the privately owned "beach yards" in china have a poor reputation. However, I don't think you can tar all Chinese yards with the same brush. The established state-run yards, such as those in the CSSC and CSIC groupings have been pruducing quality ships for years.

There are also new yards in China which have formed partnerships with western companies and these too, with adequate supervision, are producing quality tonnage.

[Bob Scott]

There's nothing new in this phenomenon of "shoddy-built" ships being built by yards in emergent shipbuilding nations. Some of the Korean yards turned out some "horrors" in the early stages of their learning curve. Sometimes, though, these 'inexperienced' yards fell victim to "deadweight-greedy", western owners (sometimes aided and abetted by classification societies) who were demanding such reduced scantlings for their vessels that the technology and build quality required to safely attain these scantlings was pushing at the limits of the yards' experience and expertise.
There were also stories of "jerry-built ships" from Japan in the early years, and from the Soviet-bloc countries, but some of these had to be taken with a pinch of salt because of prejudice from the countries whose shipbuilding industries were suffering due to the arrival of these "cheapie" newcomers.