On 5 February, 2026, PIRIOU shipyard launched Trolley de Prévaux in Concarneau, Brittany. It is the first Patrouilleur Hauturier (PH)-class offshore patrol vessel built for the French Navy.
Patrouilleur Hauturier translates as High Seas Patroller.
Despite the title of the post, ten ships of this class are planned.
Specifications:
- Tonnage: 2400t
- Length: 92m
- Width: 14.2m
- Draft: 3.8m
- Speed: 21 knots
- Accommodations: 84 (crew is likely to be about 60)
Based on earlier information, I would expect them to be based in Metropolitan France, in Brest on the Atlantic coast, Cherbourg on the English Channel, and Toulon on the Mediterranean coast.
Among their duties is escort of French Navy nuclear ballistic missile submarines as they depart or enter port. Consequently they have a hull mounted sonar.
Their equipment includes Thales’s NS54 4D (range, bearing, elevation, doppler) AESA (Active Electronically Scanned Array) multi-function radar that provides fire control for the RAPIDFire 40mm main gun.
There are also counter drone radars ranged around the bridge and a Mistral 3 SIMBAD RC short-range air defense missile system all parts of a Sea Warden Counter UAS system..
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 
Seriously, what would it take for the USCG to be dragged to France and make the deal to build us that OPV
It would take a lot. Congress is not likely to go for such a plan.
While I do think we would be better off spending equivalent money on something like these rather than fewer OPCs, it is not what I think we should be building now.
I would like to see something about four knots faster with provision for adding a combined active/passive towed array, and at least a RAM AAW system.
I think we could pass on a gun larger than 30mm if we had space reserved for VLS.
I think what we should do is take the same page we did for the Sentinel-class cutter, when Thad Allen was commandant and do the same thing for the OPC. Buy the design overseas and pay for a US Shipyard to build the OPC based on the design with NO changes.
I agree but I just can’t see Congress letting the Coast Guard take their shipbuilding dollars overseas.
Maybe that day will come but I don’t think we are there yet.
There is a lot of money and jobs at stake.
True, but it is happening with the Arctic Security Cutters but they are very specialized ships. Lots of US yards can build patrol cutters and the designs are less complex than something like a frigate.
It is I believe useful to see what other nations are doing with Coast Guard like vessels but we don’t have to build exact copies.
In this case I found the counter drone systems, including a short range missile system was something we might want to incorporate.
The USCG seems to be afraid of even short range missile systems even though they are now quite common, may be more accurate, cost less, be less likely to cause collateral damage than a gun.
We should do what Thad Allen did when he was Commandant of the USCG. He brought the Damen Stan Patrol 4708 that was based on the Lillian Ngoyi-class patrol vessel. What we did for the Sentinel-class cutter, we should have followed the same formula for the OPC as well.
We were supposed to select a proven design for the Polar Security Cutter, but instead we selected a preliminary design for a ship that still has not been built but had the same name as an existing icebreaker.
Yes. The Sentinel-class has worked out well.
The OPCs seemed like a sure thing but have taken so long to come to fruition the strategic situation has changed since their inception.
They’ve also grown in size to the point there is not much difference between them and the NSCs.
Maybe the thing to do is to buy more NSCs along with the Navy. There should be some economies of scale there and the supply chain should be robust.
A fleet of NSCs on the high end and a Cutter-X like ship on the lower-end would be a good mix.
Maybe we should take a Page from Thad Allen and what he did to the Sentinel class cutters and simply buy off the shelf like the OPV-80-class offshore patrol vessel, Patrouilleur Outre-mer or the Arafura-class offshore patrol vessel