Seatrain shipbuilding

Seatrain Lines started Seatrain Shipbuilding inside the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1968 with the intent to build 5 VLCC's 225,000 [Very Large Crude Carriers] commonly call supertankers. The Federal Government by way of the Economic Development Administration of the Department of Commerence advanced Seatrain $5 million in direct loans and guaranteed 90% of $82 million in loans from Chase Manhattan Bank. Seatrain Lines injected $38 million of their own money into the project. The union chosen to represent the shipyard production workers was the United Industrial Workers of North America.

Seatrain Built 4 220,000 ton VLCC's, 8 Barges, 1 Ice Breaker Barge and 2 Ro-Ro's. One Ro-Ro was never finished and was scrapped. Seatrain Shipbuilding also had a contract to rebuild the burned out hull of the Sea Witch Bath Iron Works Built. The Sea Witch was to be turned into a chemical tanker by Seatrain Sipbuilding.

Seatrain filed for protection on February 11, 1981 under Chapter 11 with the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Seatrain's creditors filed $800 million dollars of claims but the amount was reduced by negotiation. The final figure was in the area of $515 million dollars. Seatrain's largest unsecured creditors were the pension and welfare fund of the New York Shipping Association-International Longshoremen's Association, The US Economic Development Administra and Union Carbide Corporation.

Seatrain's Lease is as follows:Shipbuilding lease expires in 1989 and shipbuilding hold options subject to certain conditions to cancel the lease in 1974 or to renew it in 1989 for an additional 20 year period. The lease with Click provides that Shipbuilding is to employ, or to cause its subcontractors and subleases in respect to its shipyard operate to employ, certain minimum aggregate numbers of persons at the facilities, and to employ, and to cause such contractors and subleases to employ, when available, qualified hard-core unemployed from the immediate area, many of whom will, it is anticipated, be graduates of special vocational schools operated under CLICK's auspices. To the extent that such numbers of employees, which increases substantially in 1972 and in 1974, can not be economically utilized directly in its planned shipbuilding, the Company believes that though expanded activities at the shipyard, such as ship repair work, Shipbuilding will be able to achieve such level of employment as might be required under the lease, although no assurances can be given to this effect. [Above lease taken from Seatrain Lines Form 10-, page 8. Dated October 8, 1971]