Posted on January 26, 2026
BAY COUNTY, Fla. – Steel, sparks, and symbolism; a time-honored maritime tradition came to life Thursday at Eastern Shipbuilding.
Eastern Shipbuilding Group held the keel laying ceremony on Thursday afternoon at its Allanton shipyard.
The vessel is a medium-class hopper dredger called the Donnelly.
Eastern is building the ship for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“You know, it’s great for our company. We’re a ship builder, right? So, this is what we do. We’ve become very proficient at building very large and sophisticated hopper dredges such as this one. We’ve built more hopper dredges than any other U.S. shipyard. So that’s special. We’re doing that right here from, you know, little old Bay County,” President of Eastern Shipbuilding Joey D’sernia said.
