NOAA closes out its $5.2 million Rainier overhaul at Ketchikan Shipyard

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Oct. 26 closed out its order to drydock and repair the survey ship Rainier at Ketchikan Shipyard, a job the yard's new operator won weeks before it took over.

NOAA took back $392,172 it had set aside, leaving about $5.16 million committed to JAG Alaska for the work, federal award records show. The figures are commitments, not payments.

Rainier maps the ocean floor, mostly in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, to aid maritime commerce and coastal resilience. It was commissioned in 1968 and is homeported in Newport, Oregon.

NOAA picked JAG from five offers in August 2025. The work ran through early February.

The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, which owns the yard, had declined in February 2025 to extend Vigor Alaska's agreement to run it. JAG Marine Group took over Sept. 19, 2025.

The yard had 15 workers the day JAG took over and has roughly 150 now, according to AIDEA.

In September, its production workers voted 27-7 to rejoin their union after JAG said it wasn't bound by the contract they'd won under Vigor.