Future USCGC Pickering (Image: Austal USA)
“The court last month ruled against Eastern Shipbuilding, which had appealed the Coast Guard’s decision. The court unsealed the case documents Dec. 14, though with some redactions.”
There is a link to the 42-page court document, but really there is a lot more here than just the decision.
Eastern’s offer was judged better in several respects, but Austal’s price and indoor assembly facility were deciding factors.
“Ultimately, Austal’s proposal came to $3.22 billion, or about $292 million per hull, according to the unsealed documents.
“Eastern’s price is redacted in the documents but is characterized as a “very large price differential.””
It was noted,
“…only one OPC could be built in the indoor facility at a time, meaning the heel-to-toe production cadence could lend itself to “notable disruptions” to schedule.”
This suggests to me, that Austal might have trouble building more than two OPCs a year if the Coast Guard wanted to accelerate OPC production.
The paragraph below may refer to the same presentation by RAdm Jacoby discussed earlier, where he expressed a sense of urgency regarding the OPC program, but there is also an admission that maintaining the Medium Endurance Cutters has become problematic.
Coast Guard acquisition chief Rear Adm. Chad Jacoby said at a recent conference there’s no current plan to have both yards build concurrently into the future but that he’d be open to it if lawmakers increased annual OPC spending, since it’s “urgent” to get OPCs into the fleet to replace “the medium endurance cutters, which are struggling to maintain operational capability right now.”
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 
It’s typical to build one vessel at a time in an indoor facility, so nothing new there. There’s a sequence which allows components/blocks to be fabricated while there is a fully assembled hull inside, then the hull is moved outside for launch and the blocks begin to be assembled.
My money says that ESG gets back into production, so there are 2 yards building simultaneously.
It boils down to how long will they take to do the assembly in the indoor assembly hall, and what other programs they are trying to work at the same time.
I hope you are right about two yards building simultaneously.
Austal has more than one indoor assembly building, so my read is that they are dedicating one building to the OPC and other contracts they get or have will be built in other buildings.
The big “IF” is whether Congress will spend the money faster to operate both Austal and Eastern simultaneously. Considering they are in two different districts and states, but the same region, there may be a big push by congress people to get simultaneous building, thus speeding production.
Forbes saying Austal in big financial trouble, not looking good for the Austal OPC, a few quotes
“Austal will struggle to manage the dysfunctional shipyard. // the shipyard is still looking for a Vice President of Engineering—a position that has seemingly gone unfilled for about a year—and, as of September 13, the shipyard began hunting for both a new Vice President of Human Resources and a Vice President of Supply Management. // Though the company had telegraphed bad news in late July—a blowout of between $69 to $75 million on their $385 million five-ship Navajo-class Towing, Salvage and Rescue Ship (T-ATS) contract, things evidently haven’t gotten any better. // the yard’s major Offshore Patrol Cutter and T-AGOS surveillance ship contracts require significant capital investments to move forward. But, with the T-ATS losses continuing to stack up, a cash crunch looms. // the shipyard is still looking for a Vice President of Engineering—a position that has seemingly gone unfilled for about a year—and, as of September 13, the shipyard began hunting for both a new Vice President of Human Resources and a Vice President of Supply Management. ”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/craighooper/2023/09/15/struggling-austal-usa-can-only-be-fixed-by-big-changesin-australia/
Yet another reason the Coast Guard should push for keeping hot production lines at Eastern as well as Austal, rather than putting all their eggs in one basket for OPCs #5 and later.
Don’t forget Eastern has not exactly overpreformed.
It might be time to build another NSC and more FRCs as a hedge.
Time to start working on procuring some Cutter X, cutter of about 2500 tons to be built in parallel with OPC.