Tampa Shipyards, Tampa FL

(formerly McCloskey & Co., later Tampa Bay Shipbuilding, now Tampa Ship)

Most recent update: March 7, 2012.

In 1942, Matthew McCloskey developed a shipyard at Hookers Point in Tampa, on land owned by Tampa Port Authority.  The yard had 13 building ways, for the construction of concrete ships of the C1-S-D1 design: the U.S. Maritime Commission provided $7 million towards its development.  Although not unsuccessful at building concrete ships, it later switched to building steel ships, but closed after the war.  The company was acquired by George Steinbrenner's American Ship Building in 1972 and became Tampa Shipyards, Inc.  American Ship Building expanded it by converting the neighboring shrimp boat dock into two Panamax graving docks, to supplement the two existing graving docks, but the company went bankrupt in 1995.  The lease was then briefly held by a subsidiary of a Greek bulk carrier operator, who renamed it Tampa Shipbuilding, but in 1997 it was transferred to a new entity called Tampa Bay Shipbuilding & Repair Company, which was jointly owned by Tommy Bender, who owned Bender Shipbuilding & Repair, in Mobile AL, and Aaron Hendry, who owns Gulf Marine Repair, in Tampa.  Bender bought out Hendry in 2002 but sold the business to Edison Chouest Offshore in 2008.  Chouest renamed it Tampa Ship.  The shipyard is still primarily a repair facility, but has much more fabrication capability than most repair yards and under Chouest's management has begun to build PSVs.  Visit the shipyard at www.tampabayship.com and see an aerial view on Google here.