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Coast Guard will talk to potential shipbuilders

The first contracts for the Coast Guard’s next cutter program are still a year away, and the winner in the Offshore Patrol Cutter competition isn’t expected to be announced for another four or five years, but the Coast Guard already is talking with shipbuilders about different ways to approach the acquisition and award strategy, and how to build the new ships.

“We’re looking for industry’s assessment of the risks, the pros and cons of different approaches,” said Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Meverden, the OPC acquisition manager. “Things we might not have thought of.”

The meetings started Aug. 10 in Washington and were to continue through Friday. At least eight shipbuilders were taking part separately in discussions with Coast Guard budget managers and staff members from the Acquisition Directorate.

It’s a somewhat different approach to market research that “is a little bit unique,” Meverden said. “The feedback we received, it is somewhat unique to them. They don’t experience it with Navy programs. They felt it was informative.”

An initial round of talks was held in May 2009, said Carl McGill, surface systems chief for the Coast Guard and the OPC contracting officer.

“We wanted to establish our initial market research,” he said, “and wanted industry’s input on the different acquisition strategies.”

The approach may be a first for the Coast Guard, McGill and Meverden said, and was not done on the last major cutter program, the Fast Response Cutter.

“That was a different acquisition, using a parent craft,” McGill noted, referring to the Dutch firm Damen’s design that was chosen for the FRC, now known as the Sentinel class.

“We wanted to get moving with that acquisition, and didn’t do the extensive market research as we’re doing on the OPC,” he said.

After this round of talks is concluded, the next event for the OPC program will be an industry day, probably in November. A draft request for proposals is expected to be released “early next year,” McGill said, with a pre-solicitation conference to be held about a month later.

Although the winning design’s shipyard will receive the first batch of orders, subsequent competitions will be held to build further batches of the OPC. The Coast Guard foresees a need for up to 25 of the cutters, which will be medium-endurance vessels between the capabilities of the 4,100-ton National Security Cutters — two of which are already in service after being built at Northrop Grumman’s shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss. — and the 353-ton Sentinel-class FRCs, the first of which is under construction at Bollinger’s shipyard in Lockport, La.

Notional characteristics described by the Coast Guard for the new ships include a length of 300 to 399 feet; sustained speed of about 25 knots; accommodation for up to 120 crew members and riders; a range of about 7,500 nautical miles; a 57mm gun and smaller weapons; and a hangar and landing deck capable of supporting H-60 and H-65 helicopters.

Eight of the potential OPC shipbuilders meeting with the Coast Guard agreed to be identified, McGill said, adding there may be more companies that have not agreed to have their names publicized.

The eight confirmed shipbuilders are: Austal USA, Mobile, Ala.; Bollinger Shipbuilders, Lockport, La.; General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine; General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding Co., San Diego; Marinette Marine, Marinette, Wis.; Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Miss.; Todd Pacific, Seattle; and VT Halter Marine, Moss Point, Miss.