“USCG selects KVH for new 5-year small cutter satcom connectivity contract” –Marine Log

“Coast Guard Cutter John F. McCormick (WPC 1121) crew transits through the San Francisco Bay, Saturday, March 4, 2017, during their voyage to homeport in Ketchikan, Alaska. The cutter was named after McCormick who received the Gold Lifesaving Medal in 1938 for his exceptional skill in maintaining control of the 52-foot motor lifeboat Triumph while responding to a vessel in need near the Columbia River Bar under treacherous conditions, allowing the crew to recover a crewmember that had been washed overseas. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Loumania Stewart”

Marine Log reports,

Middletown, R.I., KVH Industries, Inc., (Nasdaq: KVHI), has been awarded a U.S. Coast Guard contract worth a potential $69 million that will see it supply the next-generation satellite communications solution for the service’s small cutter fleet of more than 140 vessels/platforms. Chosen in a full and open competitive procurement process, KVH’s TracPhone V7-HTS Ku-band satellite communications system and mini-VSAT broadband service will be the U.S. Coast Guard’s Small Cutter Connectivity (SCC) Ku-band System and Airtime Support Services solution. The USCG also anticipates that approximately 20 new cutters will join the small cutter fleet over the next five years, requiring the same level of support that KVH will provide to the already deployed vessels.

I presume the additional “approximately 20 new cutters” are the remaining Webber class Fast Response Cutters.

2 thoughts on ““USCG selects KVH for new 5-year small cutter satcom connectivity contract” –Marine Log

    • There is an international norm that a class of ships is referred to by the name of the first ship of that class. Internally the Coast Guard can choose to call them anything they like, but they don’t get to change an international accepted naming convention. So you will continue to see them referred to here as the Webber class. You will also see me refer to Independence class and Freedom class LCS because that is what they are.

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