Almon A. Johnson,
Inc., (AAJInc) is now in its seventh decade (Note: flyleaf, published in
1997 stated sixth decade- mdt) of designing and building deck equipment
under the Johnson Type name for
the marine and offshore oil exploration and production industries. It
continues to market it's traditional products - tow ing and mooring
winches, anchor windlasses, and capstans -while at the same time
developing new products such as an emergengy towing system for tankers,
hawser winches for tractor tugs, and storage and handling systems for high
performance elastomeric hos e used for ship to shore fuel transfer
systems. It serves customers across the United States and in the past
several years has worked on international projects in the UK, the North
Sea, Africa, Japan and South China Sea.
In the past year,
AAJInc delivered a mix of products to its customers. Under contract to
NAVSEA OOC, it designed, built and installed a new drive and control
system on the automatic towing machine system on the USS GRASP (ARS 51).
The existing DC motors and DC relay logic controls were replaced by an
electro hydraulic drive with solid state control system. The new system
provided significantly more versatile control, reduced maintenance and
increased reliability. For Halliburton Energy Services, It built two large
flow through 'live' reel systems for storage of 15,000 psi flexible
pipeline. These reels were installed on two specialized offshore service
vessels (OSV's) used for well stimulation. One ship is operating in the
Gulf of Mexico and one in the Persian Gulf. AAJInc furnished two ships e
ts of deck equipment for new tractor tugs built for TUGZ International.
Each shipset consisted of a double drum forward hawser winch, a single
drum aft winch and a hydraulic power unit (HPU) to power the winches. The
winches were designed to be fast, comp a ct winches with high brake
holding power to match thc bollard pull of the tug. Manuli Oil and Marine
(USA) purchased two hose reel storage systems for Canada's Northern
Transport, Ltd. These were fitted onto two tankers to be used for fuel
deliveries to s e ttlements located along the Canadian Eastern Arctic
coast. One thousand feet of 8 inch ID floating hose was stored on each
reel. In operation, the tanker anchors offshore and the hose is streamed
out by the reel system to the shore connection. The ship end of the hose
is connected to the piping manifold and product is pumped from ship to
shore. After pumping, the hose is disconnected and reeled back onto the
tanker.
Currently AAJInc is
building a variety of machinery for both government and commercial custo
mers. It currently holds contracts from NAVSEA for conversion of the
automatic towing machine drive and control systems on the USS GRAPPLE and
USS SAFEGUARD. These will be identical to those installed on the USS
GRASP. It is providing a set of four electr o hydraulic constant tension
mooring winches with two HPU's and two electro hydraulic anchor windlasses
with HPU's to Avondale Shipyards for the new Coast Guard Icebreaker
WAGB20. AAJInc is also building two more hose reel systems for Halliburton
Energy Sy stems similar to those furnished last year. These will be
installed on OSV's working in the Gulf of Mexico.
In addition to its
new construction, AAJInc continues to support its large base of previously
installed equipment. Customers are on the phone daily seeking help in
solving the day to day problems that come up when machinery is operating
in harsh environments and diffcult conditions. For over 55 years, AAJInc
has provided technical and repair service to keep its customer's equipment
running safely and smoothly. AAJInc employees work closely with its
customers to ensure that any problems encountered are addressed as quickly
and efficiently as possible. Day and night, AAJInc employees are dedicated
to keeping its equipment on line and its customers glad that they have
Johnson Type equipment working for them.
