Sherwin-Williams was awarded the Society for Protective
Coatings (SSPC) Military Coatings Project Award of Excellence for its work on
the U.S. Navy’s USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) along with International Marine and
Industrial Applicators, LLC (IMIA). The award recognizes exceptional coatings
work performed on U.S. military ships, structures or facilities.
“This award is truly an honor for our company in partnership with the U.S. Navy and IMIA,” said Mark Schultz, Marine Project Development Manager, Sherwin-Williams Protective & Marine Coatings. “It was an exceptional team effort to coordinate and execute this large project with such a limited time frame.”
One Hull of a Project
In the only seven months during the USS Ronald Reagan’s dry-docking at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (Bremerton, Wash.) in 2012-2013, more than 17 acres of steel would need to be preserved on the ship’s freeboard, underwater hull, sea chests, cat walks, various tanks, voids and vent plenums. This project was the largest preservation project to have ever been completed at the shipyard.
Surface Prep
IMIA prepared the steel surfaces using nearly 50 blast
nozzles and eight 22-ton steel abrasive recycling units simultaneously. Once
the ship’s surfaces had been prepared, a number of Sherwin-Williams coatings
products were used to protect the asset long-term including SeaGuard 5000 HS,
Polysiloxane XLE-80 HAPS-Free Haze Gray LSA, SeaGuard Ablative Antifouling
Coating and FastClad ER.
“Our high-performance technologies are ideal for this
project to provide long lasting service and value to the Navy,” said Schultz.
“For example, our Polysiloxane XLE-80 offers enduring color and gloss retention
in harsh marine environments. Our one-coat, rapid cure, epoxy system, FastClad
ER, combats premature corrosion on the vulnerable edges, corners and weld seams
of seawater ballast tanks and fuel tanks. Because we can install these coatings
quickly and they cure rapidly, we can reduce docking costs by returning the
ship to service on schedule.”
Sherwin-Williams is a principal supplier of marine and
MIL-SPEC coatings to the U.S. Navy. The honor was recently awarded at SSPC 2014
in Orlando, Fla.
For more information contact: Sherwin Williams, www.sherwin-williams.com
