THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 8, 1997 TAG: 9702080019
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 35 lines
An environmentally friendly machine for blasting ship hulls clean was unveiled last week in Norfolk.
Called the Bottom Blaster, the machine was developed at the Center for Advanced Ship Repair and Maintenance. That is a public-private partnership consisting of Old Dominion University, the ship-repair yards of Hampton Roads, the city of Norfolk and Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology.
With a cruising speed of 0.2 mph, the Bottom Blaster seems slow, but it can clean a 50,000-square-foot hull in 80 hours, instead of the 500 required for the common open-blast technique. And while working faster, and also cheaper, the Bottom Blaster produces 100 times less polluting waste than the open-blast method.
Next the development team needs to find a manufacturer for the Bottom Blaster, each of which will cost an estimated $125,000 to produce.
Grif McCree, interim dean of ODU's College of Engineering and Technology, said of the Bottom Blaster, ``It indicates what cooperation can do.''
He's right. A state agency, a state university, a city and private shipyards all put their heads together, and something good came of it.
That is how life should work. Some people know this. Some people know that. They get together, and the environment is well served. Also, jobs could be saved or created by the Bottom Blaster. With the Navy downsizing and commercial operators shopping judiciously for ports, having cost-saving tools like the Bottom Blaster can only help, said Norshipco Executive Vice President John ``Jack'' Roper.
We look forward to future successes from the Center for Advanced Ship Repair and Maintenance.