GCaptain has published a nice two part presentation by Wartsila discussing ways to make ship propulsion more efficient. The target audience is merchant ships, but much of it is applicable to Cutters.

Makes me more convinced than ever that, considering life-cycle costs, an integrated propulsion and ship service electrical system, like that already being used successfully on the Lewis and Clark class T-AKEs (and planned for the DDG-1000), combined with Azipod propulsion should be seriously considered for the Offshore Patrol Cutter.