Eastern Shipbuilding, Argus and Chase building. 2021
“Florida-based Eastern Shipbuilding Group (ESG) has finally made the tough decision of suspending work on the troubled Offshore Patrol Cutters (OPCs) program, a development that comes six months after the Trump administration announced partial termination of the contract owing to delays and cost overruns.
“ESG CEO Joey D’Isernia announced that owing to the significant financial strains caused by the program’s structure and conditions, the company has opted to suspend work on its in-construction Heritage-class OPCs, resulting in layoffs.”
Can’t say this is a surprise. May 28, 2025 the Department issued a Request for Information for towing and a technical assessment for what could only have been an Offshore Patrol Cutter. OPCs #3 and #4 were cancelled in July.
Now, what will happen to OPC#1, Argus, and is there anything we can salvage from OPC #2, Chase?
This does leave the Coast Guard short of large patrol cutters, particularly in the Pacific. By now, there were supposed to be two OPCs home-ported in San Pedro and two home-ported in Kodiak. This is another reason LANT AREA’s should assume full responsibility for policing the Eastern Pacific drug transit zone.
There really should be an investigation of how this happened.
Thanks to Pat for bringing this to my attention.
Keel Laying for OPC#3 hull number 917. Presumably future 915 is to the right and future 916 to the left. July 2022.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 
This is really sad. The CG badly needs those ships.
As you mentioned, there needs to be an investigation and some lessons-learned coming out of this disaster.
So we now have two OPC hulls that are more complete than not. What happens to them next? Can Austal USA message these hulls with their configuration plan? There are two hulls now sitting doing nothing but turning into rust. What happens to them?
@Torch
It is not unheard of for an incomplete ship to towed to a different shipyard to be completed.
Two OPCs are also under construction at Austal. I think their third OPC has also been funded and long lead time items for their fourth, fifth, and sixth ship have been funded.
I am not in a position to predict what will happen to OPCs #1 and #2. Maybe the Coast Guard will have a plan in the not too distant future.
I would figure the USCG could find someone other than Austal to finish Argus and Chase, for the right price. That is as long as they can be finished for less than awarding Austal additional hulls.
And someone else finishing 1 & 2 would likely put ships in service faster than Austal tacking hulls onto the end of their current contract. What there is of Ingham and Rush obviously makes more economical sense to right off.
I would also think getting another yard working on OPCs might help generate some more competitive bidding for hulls 16 and on.
I probably don’t have the big picture on this snafu but how come no one in HQ never gets their ass in a sling for this?
Great Question. I wonder if Papp regrets the decision.
This makes me even less happy about the buy of another 10 FRCs. They could have easily fast tracked a new, larger cutter at Lockport just to give a little more flexibility. This is my Damen FCS 5009 pitch.
It seems we are building more FRCs because that’s the only thing we are currently able to build.
The FRCs are a proven commodity, but it’s hard to argue against the need for something a bit bigger and more capable.
Maybe that is Chuck’s Cutter-X concept or something similar.
More endurance, better aviation capabilities and more able to carry better weapons/sensors when that would be advantageous.
Given the Coast Guards success with the FRC, one of the larger, proven Damen designs should be considered.
As I recall there was a time when the cost of an OPC has risen almost to that of an NSC. Perhaps that’s the way out.
With Hyundai Heavy Industries. now the owner of the Philadelphia naval shipyards maybe we can contract with them to have them build a number of the new offshore patrol boat at their building for the Philippine Coast Guard that Chuck posted about not long ago. These are a good candidate for the cutter X and they seem to be producing them in in record time
Fantasy fleet nonsense.
And HHI does not own Philly Shipyard, Hanwha Group does, through their subsidy Hanwha Ocean (formerly Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) )
There is no “cutter X” requirement
Any “cutter X” requirement would require the USCG to conduct a new fleet analysis (which probably needs to be done, right Chuck?)
Any new “cutter X” requirement would necessitate an open industry competition.
If the USCG opens bidding to complete Argus and Chase it would be great if Hanwha/Philly Shipyard threw their hat in the ring. The yard is currently building the National Security Multi-Mission Vessels (NSMV) for US MARAD, and Hanwha Ocean has a master ship repair agreement (MSRA) with Naval Supply System Command (though current contracted work is in Korea)
I seem to remember reading that there is something drastically wrong with the Argus. I don’t recall the specifics but something was not lined up properly and that affected the propulsion. Maybe someone here knows more?
I think it was the shafting, but that was supposed to have been fixed.
Chuck After re-reading your article about lost of OPC’s I was wondering why does not do like theyare doing to Icebreakers. Have first 4 or 5 built overseas and rest in the US. They (USCG) could contact the ship builders in Japan or Korea about building OPV’s like they are doing building OPV’s for the Asian market. Or go to the European countries including those upnorth about building OPV’s with the same idea for the Icebreakers that will be built. Get at least 6 -7 built overseas and rest in USA if the ship builders can get their act together. Finally the OPV’s should be ARMED with VLS and big ass gun. Along with having spacesavailable for either ASW or Minesweeping operations like the LCC’s now in the Middle East Force taking on minesweeping assignment from the MSO’s . These are thoughts that have been around my brain since reading the below Blog. I hope you do not mind with this rant. Respectfully Paul
@Paul, No I like that the blog is prompting thinking.
We have a serious problem in that we have too few large patrol cutters and most are getting very old.
During WWII, Britain that certainly had a large ship building industry, could not build ships fast enough, so they had warships built in the US. There is no shame in having ships built by your allies.
The shame is that we waited so long to start the process of building MEC replacements.
In all seriousness, CG-9 and CG-93 should look at potentially refitting civilian hulls for the OPC/MEC mission in the interim. If we can do it for something as highly specialized as the Storis, we can do it for more general purpose hulls like the MEC fleet. https://havokjournal.com/culture/military/the-u-s-coast-guard-needs-a-lifeboat/