Ocean Tug & Barge Engineering Corp., a naval architecture and marine engineering firm specializing in articulated tug/barge (ATB) design, is now a member of the Hyperion Marine Engineering Group.
Hyperion is headquartered in Portland, Maine, with offices in India, Dubai, Norway and the Netherlands. OTB&E is based in Milford, Mass.
CT Marine & Buoyancy Consultants formed Hyperion three years ago recognizing a need for an integrated naval architectural and marine engineering firm to serve the inland and offshore tug and barge industry that incorporates a capability for conceptual through highly detailed production design, all under one roof. With over 70 engineers who span the globe, Hyperion offices are essentially open for business to serve client needs around the clock.
CT Marine and OT&BE, which recently celebrated over three decades of collaborative work, will now offer more experience and proven designs in brownwater and blue water sectors of the tug/barge design marketplace — inland to unlimited International — than any other firm in the world, company officials said.
"Historically, our biggest challenge at Ocean Tug & Barge Engineering was the high demand for our services verse the size of our staff,” OT&BE president Bob Hill, said in a statement. “This often created delays delivering the high quality of engineering customer demand as quickly as desired. The quality of the design work OT&BE does is among the very best in the industry, but our small staff, sized to my own choices/preferences, coupled with high demand for our services, slowed our design work significantly. As president of the firm, I have been determined to solve that problem, and now we have."
Hill said that by joining Hyperion, that challenge is removed by giving OT&BE the flexibility to pull from a growing team of engineers while simultaneously incorporating the latest in 3-D design. “We are now an international design firm, operating 24 hours a day, and I could not be more proud of our direction "
Capabilities
Hill said Hyperion has an excellent track record in delivering high quality, production design work — on time — including hull structural detailing, systems detailing, steel cutting information, yard detail design packages for the builder, electrical, piping and HVAC design and support, outfitting design and support, and construction inspection and management.
“As class requirements demand that naval architects deliver ever-larger and complex drawing and engineering packages for class to review to attain approval, we recognize that it is vitally important to a client, that work be done not only quickly, but with an accuracy level and sophistication that is outside of the means of many small firms,” Hill said.
Under Hyperion, vessels are no longer designed in 2-D drawings — they are designed from the start in 3-D and all drawings are pulled from the 3-D model. This means that essentially the architects/engineers build the vessel first, before the shipyard does, enabling them to find any potential conflicts that are always present in all 2-D designs, and resolve them before they become costly shipyard change orders.
“We are also not limited to using a single 3-D ship design package like most firms are — we can design in CATIA, Nupas Cadmatic, and Ship Constructor, plus our offices are easily expandable to much large staff sizes with additional expertise via our access to worldwide talent markets,” Hill said.
Hill said the days of waiting for the translation from 2-D drawings to 3-D models and production are over. It means the virtual elimination of costly design errors and conflicts in a 2-D design that has to be translated to a shipyard production model, Hill said, adding that it is the end of shipyards using 2-D design inconsistencies as excuses to seek costly change orders and delivery delays.
Hyperion Marine Engineering Group will be at the 2018 International Workboat Show in New Orleans, Nov. 28-30, Booth 1327.
