Below is an Austal news release. This is the third of up to eleven Offshore Patrol Cutters to be built by Austal under the current contract.
Construction began on the first, the future USCGC Pickering (WMSM-919), on 29 August 2024. Keel was laid December 8, 2025. Delivery is expected in 2027.
Austal USA began construction of the future USCGC Icarus (WMSM-920) August 5, 2025.
The first three ships were to be delivered one per year. The remaining ships are to be delivered two per year.
Something has happened here that you may have missed. Ingham was to have been the third Eastern built OPC. The transfer of the name to Austal’s third ship is additional confirmation that Eastern’s #3 and #4 OPC will never be built.
I have seen no new contracts to complete USCGC Argus and Chase since the June 2026 cancellation of Eastern’s contract.
August 27, 2026
Mobile, Ala. – Austal USA has started construction on its third U.S. Coast Guard Heritage-class Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC), the future USCGC Ingham, at the company’s Mobile, Ala. ship manufacturing facility. Ingham is being built under a contract that includes options for up to 11 cutters and has a current potential value of $3.3 billion.
“Each new OPC moving into production demonstrates how far our steel shipbuilding team has come,” Austal USA President Gene Miller said. “Ingham will give the Coast Guard the endurance, flexibility and offshore capability it needs to protect our nation’s maritime interests. We are committed to building a strong, serial production program for this important class of cutters.”
Austal USA uses a modular construction approach designed to increase production efficiency and allow a high percentage of each module to be outfitted before final assembly. The company’s engineering and production teams also developed a detailed 3D model of the cutter early in the design process to support planning, coordination and construction.
The OPC program will recapitalize the Coast Guard’s aging medium endurance cutter fleet and provide a capability bridge between the service’s national security cutters, which operate in the open ocean, and fast response cutters, which operate closer to shore.
The 360-foot OPC will provide the majority of the Coast Guard’s offshore presence, conducting missions including law enforcement, drug and migrant interdiction, and search and rescue. With a range of 10,200 nautical miles at 14 knots and a 60-day endurance period, each OPC will be capable of deploying independently or as part of a task group and serving as a mobile command-and-control platform for surge operations such as hurricane response and mass migration incidents. The cutters will also support Arctic objectives by helping regulate and protect emerging commerce and energy exploration in Alaska.
With the start of Ingham, Austal USA has three OPCs under construction: the future USCGC Pickering, USCGC Icarus, and USCGC Ingham. Together, these cutters anchor Austal USA’s growing steel shipbuilding portfolio, which also currently includes construction of four Landing Craft Utility vessels, three Navajo-class Towing, Salvage and Rescue Ships, an Auxiliary Floating Dry Dock Medium, and submarine modules supporting the Virginia- and Columbia-class submarine programs.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 
It’s suspicious that Argus and Chase are in a long time mode of dormancy. The service is bound to know what their futures hold and we need them in the game ASAP. Maybe someday soon they’ll tell us.
What has happened to the Argus and Chase?
Ellen
Ellen, last I heard the Coast had a solicitation for someone to tow away what could only have been Argus. Have heard nothing about the award.
It appears, both are still at Eastern, Argus afloat and Chase still on shore.
Thanks
Ellen
No nation builds ships more slowly than the United States does. It’s not just the Coast Guard–the U.S. Navy’s warships are just as many years behind as the Coast Guard’s cutters and icebreakers.
Eastern should never have gotten the contract. Contruction at Austal seems to be going pretty much as expected. Construction in Russia has been very slow. Spain used to be slow but moves along nicely now.
Don’t forget that Austal has been building sail drones and the CVN aircraft elevators. OUSV-3 Vanguard also sits there unfinished.
OPC seems like a great spot to apply some of the new practices to grow the fleet. Team with a foreign yard for a parent design we can live with without making major changes. Either that or just a second yard foreign or domestic to get OPCs out faster.
RE: Argus/Chase, quietly making poor ship designs/builds disappear feels like an old CG tradition. I recall in the early 1990s a ~120 foot WPB replacement for the Island Class being designed by academy cadets (Liberty class? Something like that, was an article in the Commandant’s Bulletin). The prototype was being built at Curtis Bay but it was quietly reefed. Asked the yardbirds about it in 1994 when I was cross-decking Resolute/Alert and they said it was just a terrible design, deck literally buckling under your feet as you walked on it. Which then sounds like no lessons were learned when they tried to reshape the Island Class by adding length.