source GAIA package: Sx_MilitaryTimes_M6200710704170324_5675.zip Origin key: Sx_MilitaryTimes_M6200710704170324 imported at Fri Jan 8 18:18:01 2016
The Coast Guard will decommission eight recently built patrol boats because the ships suffer from hull deformations and other problems that would be cost-prohibitive to fix, officials said Tuesday.
The decision to scrap the ships — eight 123-foot Island Class patrol boats that were refurbished between 2003 and 2005 — is the final nail in the coffin for the long-beleaguered program. The vessels were never fully operational and their troubles became central in a debate over the Coast Guard's handling of its Deepwater modernization program.
Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen said extensive analysis of the vessels by Coast Guard and naval engineers did not reveal a single root cause for their problems, which range from exterior cracking and buckling in the hulls to interior bulging and warping of frames as well as misalignment of propeller shafts.
Allen estimated that repairs would exceed $50 million.
"We believe the design reduced the structural cross section necessary to support the added weight distribution following the conversion. Our analysis has been complicated, however, by the fact that we've observed permanent deformations of each hull in slightly different ways," Allen said.
The eight vessels were the produced under a contract to convert the Coast Guard's 49 110-foot patrol boats into 123-foot vessels.
The plan had been to refurbish and lengthen the vessels, adding a new superstructure, stern-ramp capability and upgrades, as well as improved living quarters and electronics suites.
The first ship to enter the program was the 110-foot patrol boat Matagorda, which entered Bollinger Shipyards in Lockport, La., in 2003. Shortly after it arrived, however, engineers found the condition of its hull to be more worn than anticipated. Builders replaced more than 900 square feet of Matagorda's hull as it performed other contract requirements.
Engineers found similar hull degradation in the Coast Guard's remaining 110-foot patrol boats, but it was determined that their hull plating could be replaced during the refurbishment.
In 2004, after Matagorda's conversion was complete, it developed a six-inch crack forward of its superstructure, the day after it arrived at its new home port of Key West., Fla.
Later, the other seven that underwent conversions suffered similar malformations.
In early 2005, then-Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thomas Collins announced he was abandoning the conversion program.
Additional problems continued to plague the eight 123s, as they developed problems with shaft alignment and were found unfit for duty in seas higher than eight feet.
In 2006, a Lockheed Martin employee charged that his employer, which furnished the electronics packages electronics packages for the 123s, defrauded the government by installing equipment that did not meet Coast Guard specifications.
Earlier this year, the Homeland Security Inspector General said that the vessels' C4ISR suites were found to be inadequate. According to the DHS IG, the equipment lacked the correct type of cables required by the contract. It also said the package, which provides secure data and voice transmission capability to the vessels, was vulnerable to eavesdropping.
The Coast Guard faces a shortage of operational patrol boat hours as the result of the loss of the 123s.
The service is left with 41 110-foot patrol boats — six of which are deployed to the Persian Gulf — and four 179-foot Cyclone-class patrol boats on loan from the Navy. Next year, the number of Cyclone-class patrol boats will be reduced to three, as the Coast Guard returns one needed by the Navy.
Coast Guard patrol boats are considered to be the fleet's workhorses, handling small cutter duties such as migrant interdiction and counter-drug operations, fisheries enforcement and homeland security patrols.
Some within the service held out hope that the 123s could be fixed. On Tuesday, Allen squelched any optimism.
"The excessive cost and time associated with continuing to pursue an uncertain resolution to these structural problems has convinced me that permanently removing these cutters from service, while recouping any residual value and redirecting funds to other programs is in the best interest of the government," Allen said.
According to figures provided by the Coast Guard, the service spent $87 million on the 123-conversion program. Congressional sources say the amount is closer to $94 million.
Allen said the service will save $30 million by pulling all usable equipment from the boats, including electronics and sensor packages, as well as eight short-range rigid hull inflatable boats.
Congressional critics have called on Allen to track down those responsible for the decision to continue with the program, despite initial concern on the ships' hull conditions.
Those calling prominently for the Coast Guard to try to recoup funds include Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, as well as Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss.
"I continue to be dumbfounded by what happened to the 110s," Taylor said during a House hearing March 8. "You are in the business of running marine safety inspections on every commercial ship in America ? so how the heck do you stretch eight ships and render them useless, spend $100 million in taxpayers money and nobody in your fine organization catches this?"
Allen said his staff continues to look into the matter.
"We'll pursue all viable options, contractual, legal or otherwise, for recouping any funds that might be owed the government as a result of the loss of these hulls," Allen said.
The Coast Guard plans to issue a request for proposal on design and production of a new patrol boat, called the fast response cutter-B, in May 2007, aiming for delivery of the first of 12 boats in early 2010.
Initially, all fast response cutter programs were to fall under the ICGS-Deepwater umbrella, but Allen announced in March that the Coast Guard would handle that acquisition in-house.
An ICGS spokeswoman Margaret Mitchell-Jones said Tuesday that the integrator supports Allen's efforts to find "the root cause" of the 123s' structural problems.
"Both industry and the Coast Guard believed the conversion would increase available patrol boat hours within a fixed budget, as a stop-gap measure until new patrol boats could be built ? ICGS has and will continue to work with the Coast Guard in seeking to determine the root cause of the issues and a path forward to assist the Coast Guard with its patrol boat mission needs," Mitchell-Jones said.
