LAUGHLIN TIDE

European defense giant Rheinmetall has signalled interest in taking over German shipbuilder Naval Vessels Luerssen, industry sources told Reuters on Wednesday, as the Duesseldorf-based firm looks to expand into the naval business.According to the Bild newspaper, which first reported Rheinmetall's plans, the supervisory board intends to consider the purchase in the coming weeks.According to Bild, the Luerssen family, who own the shipbuilder, plan to divest its military shipyards in Hamburg, Wilhelmshaven and Wolgast to focus on building megayachts.

Seatrium has secured a contract from Golar Hilli Corporation, a subsidiary of Golar LNG, to perform the upgrading of floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) unit Hilli Episeyo.Scheduled to enter the yard in the third quarter of 2026, the project involves technical modifications for FLNG Hilli Episeyo’s redeployment.The scope of work includes engineering and procurement of long-lead items, repair and life extension and winterization of the vessel, as well as the installation of a new soft-yoke mooring system.

American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) has issued classification to the Surveyor, a fully autonomous deepwater unmanned surface vehicle (USV), developed by Saildrone.At 20 meters long and capable of unmanned operations across all of the world’s oceans, the Surveyor is the largest class of USVs from Saildrone, a provider of maritime security, ocean mapping, and meteorological and oceanographic data using unmanned autonomous assets.The USV is capable of long-endurance missions in the open ocean, collecting deep-ocean bathymetry and performing a wide range of maritime domain awareness tasks.

South Korea's HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, the world's biggest shipbuilder, said on Wednesday that it plans to merge with its affiliate HD Hyundai Mipo as it targets a bigger slice of the U.S. shipbuilding market.With the merger, the company said it aims to lead U.S.-Korea shipbuilding cooperation projects touted during a recent summit between the leaders of the countries that Seoul has dubbed "Make American Shipbuilding Great Again.""Ahead of the full-scale launch of the MASGA project following the Korea-U.S. summit and as countries around the world are strengthening naval power, demand for K-defence is expected to increase further," the company said in a statement.

Dating back to the year 1786, Thomas Jefferson wrote to a member of the Continental Congress on the importance of free press keeping government in check. He was quoted as saying if he had a choice between “a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to choose the latter.”The basis of the statement being that the government is the opinion of the people.  It is not in the current U.S. shipping reporting.The first “newspaper” shipbuilding announcements consisted of new legislation capable of delivering us back to our former maritime dominance.