Ketchikan: Rigging and Crane Exam Prep for a Shipbuilding Town

Which rulebook covers you here

Ketchikan is a good example of split jurisdiction. Shipbuilding and ship repair generally sit with federal OSHA under its maritime standards in 29 CFR 1915, not with the state program. A contractor pouring a foundation uptown or setting steel for a borough building works under AKOSH, which adopts the federal construction crane rules. Cruise dock construction is usually construction work; loading and unloading cargo at a marine terminal is usually maritime.

The practical takeaway: learn the construction crane standard well, because it is what most certification exams test, then let your employer tell you where its shipyard procedures differ. Load charts, rigging capacity and hand signals do not change at the property line.

Inside the yard

Hull modules, outfitting packages, propulsion parts and deckhouse sections all move by crane before a vessel ever floats. When the state contracted for the two Alaska Class ferries in 2014, it chose to pay without federal funds partly so the boats would be built by Alaskans, and the yard's workforce grew around that program.

Riggers who understand center of gravity, sling angle reduction and multi-crane coordination are valuable in that setting. Rigger Level II content, which goes deeper into load calculations and lift planning, is a natural target for yard hands who already hold a Level I card.

The ferry program also showed how contract terms shape where work happens: in 2018 the builder sought to move some Hubbard work out of state, which its contract allowed, while the state pushed to keep it in Ketchikan. Local hands with documented skills are the strongest argument for keeping work at home.

Cruise berths seven miles apart

The Ward Cove dock, about seven miles north of downtown on the old pulp mill site, received its Corps permit in January 2020 and took its first paying passengers in August 2021. It was designed for the largest ships calling in Alaska. Downtown, the city's berths can take only one of the biggest ships at a time, and reconfiguring them was once estimated at up to $150 million including shoreside work.

Any future dock change means piling, fendering and gangway work timed around the cruise calendar, typically in the off-season.

Rain, tide and getting off the island

Ketchikan is famously wet, and wet synthetic slings, slick tag lines and poor visibility on a rainy dock all deserve a moment in the pre-lift briefing. Tide changes the height between float and pier, and that matters when a truck crane on the dock is reaching down to a vessel.

There is no highway out, so candidates usually fly or take the ferry for a practical exam elsewhere in the state or in the Lower 48. Finish the written prep first so the trip is a single visit.