Weekly News Summary For February 2-8, 2009:
Ambassadors International Inc., owners of the Delta Queen, announced January 27 that the company had leased the historic paddlewheel riverboat to Harry Phillips, owner of Chattanooga Water Taxi and Fat Cat Ferry in Chattanooga, Tenn.
The Delta Queen will depart from New Orleans in February. Once moored at Chattanooga’s Coolidge Park Landing, it will be operated as a floating hotel on the Chattanooga riverfront. Sydney Slome, owner of Chattanooga’s historic StoneFort Inn, will manage the boat. Slome bought the Stonefort Inn from Phillips two years ago.
America’s last traditional steamboat carrying overnight passengers, the Delta Queen is a registered historic treasure of the Department of the Interior and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and a member of the National Maritime Hall of Fame.
It was recently nominated for inclusion on the National Trust for Preservation’s 2009 list, “America’s Most Endangered Places.”
The Chattanooga arrangement is temporary. Phillips will act as a caretaker of the vessel while Ambassadors International continues to search for a permanent owner to operate it as an overnight cruise vessel, said Ambassadors Cruise Group president Diane Moore…
Kirby Corporation last week extended its string of record net quarterly earnings announcements, but said that string will likely come to an end soon.
The Houston, Texas-based company reported net earnings for the fourth quarter of $38.4 million or 72 cents per share, compared with $34.4 million or 64 cents per share for the 2007 fourth quarter. Consolidated revenues for the 2008 fourth quarter were a record $326.7 million, an increase of 6 percent over the $307.9 million reported for the 2007 fourth quarter.
EBITDA, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, was $89.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2008, up from $80.7 million a year earlier. For the full year of 2008, EBITDA was $359.9 million, up from $301 million a year earlier.
Joseph Pyne, Kirby president, said that it was the 20th straight quarter that the company’s earnings had exceeded those from the same quarter of the prior year. But he noted that Kirby is beginning to see a weakening in both its marine transportation and engine repair markets as the economic downturn impacts customers….
The delayed opening of the stainless steel division of ThyssenKrupp’s $4.6 billion steel plant near Mobile was called a “blip” by an Alabama official, according to recent reports in the Mobile Press-Register.
The stainless division’s startup, originally planned for the fourth quarter of 2009, will be pushed back to the fourth quarter of 2010 to move spending into the fiscal year that begins in October 2009.
The delay is part of measures that the steel giant has taken to conserve cash during the global recession, which has sent demand and prices for steel plummeting. ThyssenKrupp is adopting measures globally to cope with the recession, including dismissing temporary workers in Germany and reducing hours at some of its European plants.
Chief executive Ekkehard Schulz told a shareholders meeting on January 23, “I have never seen, in my more than 40 years of experience, such a sharp slump as we have seen in the past months,” according to Reuters.
World Steel reported that global crude steel output fell 24.3 percent in December. Output in Germany, the world’s seventh-largest steel producer, fell 35 percent in December…
The mv. Holy Rosary, the newest towboat in Marquette Transportation LLC’s Gulf Inland unit, was up and running as of January 20, bringing back a six-pack tow to New Orleans.
The Holy Rosary is one of a series of boats built for Marquette’s Gulf Inland division (formerly Eckstein Marine Services) by Raymond & Associates of Bayou la Batre, La.
The 74-by-30 foot, 2,000 hp. towboat features two Caterpillar 3508 Tier II diesel engines, paired with Reintjes WAF562 gearboxes with a 5.947 to 1 reduction. John Deere provided the 75 kw. gen sets.
The pilothouse features state-of-the-art electronics, including a Furuno 1954 “black box” style radar that is smaller and less bulky than previous models, as well as Jeppeson’s integrated charting and navigation system and AIS….
The Waterways Journal encourages letters to the editor.
Have something on your mind?
Send letters to: jshoulberg@waterwaysjournal.net.
(Please indicate whether or not your letter is intended for publication.)
