Elastec/American Marine builds and markets aluminium workboats suited for use in oil spill response. The workboats are being used to keep harbours clean from Chicago to China, to ferry people from one place to another in Peru, and to cut and remove unwanted vegetation from Texas lake bottoms.

Elastec/American Marine has been selling vessels for over a decade, but Don Johnson, aluminium boat manager for E/AM was brought on board two years ago to lead the company’s entry into the workboat manufacturing field. Those plans had to be put on hold, however, as the Deepwater Horizon disaster occurred just a few days after he joined E/AM. Company executives Donnie Wilson and Jeff Cantrell led a team that quickly responded to the need, and the firm ultimately led the effort to burn hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil fouling the Gulf’s surface.

E/AM responded to the subsequent Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE  by designing and building the most effective oil spill recovery system ever devised, which system, using the company’s patented grooved disc technology, won the USD1 million first prize in the 2011 international competition. Johnson was deeply involved in both of those efforts and remains a key player in Elastec/American Marine’s oil spill response team.

But now he’s turned much of his attention to the area in which he has greatest experience: building boats. Under his leadership the company has manufactured workboats ranging from a 20-footer used in Peru as a “people-mover” to a 28-foot vessel employed by Future Environmental, Inc. (in the Chicago area) as a rapid response vessel. Its most recent products are a 26-foot “basic fast response boat” (which Johnson described as a “bare-bones, no-frills, get out there and get the work done” vessel) and another 28-footer, similar to the one in use in Chicago. Both performed admirably when deployed on an area lake this spring to tow and test a new oil skimmer (the X150) based on the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE winner.

The 28-footer (equipped with two 140-HP engines) was also tested in a configuration that included the skimmer, boom and a boom vane and it handled the chore admirably.

The workboats are designed for oil spill response and typically feature shallow draft, open decks and high speed. They range in size from 49-foot catamarans with a 15-ton payload to skiffs for transporting shoreline equipment. Elastec/American Marine is gearing up to build two more rapid response workboats (an 18-footer and a 25-foot vessel) to be used in oil spill situations where it’s vital to “get the boom out there quickly” to contain a spill. The 26-foot “no frills” workboat was designed to fit inside a 40-foot intermodal container (which could also hold boom, a small E/AM skimmer and power unit) which also can “act as a garage” to keep the boat and equipment clean and dry, even at the water’s edge, ready for rapid deployment.

 (Spill-international, Edited by Topco)