Marine Construction Advisory
Marine construction support from someone who has been on the barge
Marine and heavy civil projects punish weak planning. Manara provides project management support and construction advisory grounded in years of delivering this work: wharves, foundations, in-water structures, and the logistics that make or break them.
What we do
Inside this service
Project management support
Hands-on PM capacity for marine and heavy civil projects: planning, procurement support, subcontractor coordination, progress tracking, and reporting.
Construction advisory
Constructability reviews, execution planning, and risk reviews before and during the work. A second set of experienced eyes on the plan.
Project controls setup
Cost and schedule tracking structured for marine work, where weather windows, tides, and equipment spreads drive the plan.
Claims & schedule review support
Clear-eyed review of delays, changes, and records. Documentation that holds up because it was set up properly from the start.
Tools
What we work with
Controls
- Primavera P6
- MS Project
- Cost and quantity tracking
Engineering
- AutoCAD
- Civil 3D
- SAP2000
Delivery
- Constructability review
- Marine SME support
- Claims and records
Sound familiar?
Problems this service exists to solve
- A marine scope landing on a team that mostly builds on land
- Schedules that ignore tides, weather windows, and marine equipment cycles
- Thin records on a project heading toward a dispute
- Owners needing an experienced independent view of contractor plans
- PM teams stretched too thin to give a complex project real attention
What you get: Marine scopes planned by someone who has delivered them, records that protect you, and fewer expensive surprises on the water.
How it runs
How this engagement runs
- 01
Discovery call
A free 30-minute call about the project, the water, and what's keeping you up at night. We agree scope and whether you need advisory, hands-on PM capacity, or both.
- 02
Assess
We review the scope, plan, and risks with an eye to tides, weather windows, and equipment spreads: the things that punish a land-based plan.
- 03
Plan
Constructability input, execution planning, and controls structured for marine work, set up before the first barge moves.
- 04
Support
Hands-on PM capacity, subcontractor coordination, progress tracking, and reporting through delivery, at whatever fraction the project needs.
- 05
Protect
Records and documentation maintained so they hold up if the project heads toward a dispute. The cheapest claims defence is the one set up on day one.
Timelines follow the project. We scope both on the discovery call.
What you get
Deliverables
- Constructability and execution-plan review
- Marine-appropriate cost and schedule controls
- Fractional PM or SME support through delivery
- Records and documentation that protect you
Pricing
Scoped to the work
Marine engagements are quoted custom after a scoping call, because scope and duration vary with the work and the water. We provide fractional Project Manager, Project Controller, and Marine subject-matter-expert support during surge capacity, which costs less than permanently hiring and carries no long-term commitment.
Questions
Frequently asked
Do you take on the full PM role or support our team?
Either. Some clients need a fractional PM to run the marine scope; others want an experienced second set of eyes beside their own team. We scope it on the call.
Can you review a contractor's plan for us as the owner?
Yes. Independent constructability and schedule review for owners is a common engagement, especially where the owner's team mostly builds on land.
What size of project do you work on?
From single-structure marine scopes to multi-year programs. The featured projects below give a sense of the range.
We're already mid-project and it's going sideways. Too late?
No. Mid-project recovery reviews, schedule resets, and records cleanup are exactly when an outside marine perspective earns its fee fastest.
Do you handle claims?
We support them: delay analysis, records review, and documentation. For formal legal proceedings we work alongside your counsel rather than replacing them.
Track record
Selected project experience
A selection of the marine and heavy-civil projects I've delivered as a project manager and engineer in British Columbia.
Pier 61 Decommissioning
Burnaby, Burrard Inlet
Challenge: Taking a marine pier out of service is a sequencing and permitting problem before it is a demolition one. Tides and regulators both set the pace.
What I brought: Ran the master schedule and chaired stakeholder coordination, authored the execution and demolition-sequencing plans behind the permits, and packaged the marine and mechanical-electrical scopes for tender, then helped evaluate the bids.
Strathcona Dam Seismic Upgrades
Campbell River, Vancouver Island
Challenge: A dam seismic upgrade needed an in-water silt curtain to control turbidity during rock placement, with no off-the-shelf design to start from.
What I brought: Co-led the multidisciplinary design team that developed it, repurposing existing steel fish-pen modules to meet the structural and cost targets, and authored the installation, rock-placement, and barge-recall plans that turned the design into a build method.
Gabion Lake Hydroelectric
Hartley Bay area, North Coast BC
Challenge: A remote hydroelectric build had to line up design, funding, and procurement at once, on an aggressive schedule with federal funding conditions attached.
What I brought: Built the CapEx estimate and integrated schedule, wrote the execution and procurement strategies, and led the RFP process for the weir and access-road scopes through to award recommendations, while keeping the funding work on track to hold eligibility.
Vancouver Airport Fuel Delivery, Marine Terminal
Richmond, Fraser River
Challenge: A marine fuel terminal is a live, safety-critical construction front where every RFI, inspection, and change has to be resolved without stalling the work.
What I brought: Led field coordination through marine terminal construction, keeping RFIs, submittals, and inspections moving, managed change orders and quantity take-offs against the budget, and ran the QA/QC and agency liaison that kept federal and municipal approvals ahead of schedule.
Other project experience
- Tank Farm 2 Expansion. RFP packages across multiple scopes, with cost and schedule controls.
- Gitga'at Daycare & MERRF Buildings. project controls, execution planning, and month-end reporting through design and pre-construction.
- Vancouver Landfill Civil Upgrades. construction inspection and progress reporting on civil and structural works.
- Front Street Pressure Sewer Rehabilitation. method statements for maintenance-hole abandonment and replacement.
- Westhill Pool Lift Station Rehabilitation. options feasibility, contract award, and close-out.
- Major bridge upgrade program. program governance framework and executive committee structure.
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Talk to us about Marine Advisory
A free 30-minute discovery call. Describe the problem; you'll leave with practical next steps either way.