Tag Archives: shipbuilding

Commandant asks Surface Navy Association for Help

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Thursday, Jan. 12, Admiral Papp addressed the Surface Navy Association and asked for their help in educating the Congress and the Administration regarding the need to complete the current ship acquisition plans.

Two things come to mind, first, good to see the Commandant on the stump trying to sell the program, and second, the Navy has not been helpful so far.

Why hasn’t the Navy helped in this regard?

  • Is it negligence?
  • Are they afraid money will be diverted from the Navy to the CG?
  • Do they feel the Coast Guard’s large ships are no longer naval assets, so why bother?

Video, Bernard C. Webber, FRC on trials

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(Update: Revised video posted)

(If link does not work, copy and paste into your browser.)
Note the Mk 38 mod 2 25 mm gun is mounted on the main deck, lower and further forward than shown in previous illustrations. This is a seriously big “boat.”

Bollinger also launched the third FRC, William Flores, 29 November. The Coast Guard Compass has the story and photos.

(Thanks to http://www.coltoncompany.com/ for the update)

Canadian Icebreaker, Arctic Offshore Patrol Ship, Shipyard “Rationalization”

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As we noted earlier the Canadians are embarking on a major ship building program. A lot is riding on the choice of two shipyards that will be responsible for virtually all the work.

Most interesting for Coast Guard readers is that they will be building a large icebreaker for the Canadian Coast Guard and six to eight “Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships” which can operate in the North West Passage in the Summer months in addition to serving as conventional offshore patrol vessels based on the Norwegian Coast Guard ship Svalbard (These ships are going to the Navy).  Background here, here, and here.

The selection has been made and the Irving Shipyard in Halifax, NS, will get the contract for 15 combat vessels and the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships, worth a total of about C$25B. Seaspan Shipyard, in Vancouver, BC, will build non-combat vessels, valued at approximately C$8B, including those for the Coast Guard as well as oceanographic and fisheries research vessels.

(A note of thanks to Ken White for keeping me up to date on this and providing the illustrations below.)

http://mail.aol.com/34290-111/aol-6/en-us/mail/get-attachment.aspx?uid=31908140&folder=OldMail&partId=3

CG Seeks Alternatives for FRC Construction

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Coulton Company’s Maritime Memos brought to my attention that the Coast Guard is looking at the possibility of constructing future FRCs at yards other than Bollinger. They have issued an Request For Information (RFI).

“Background: The Fast Response Cutter (FRC)/SENTINEL Class Phase I contract was awarded in September 2008 to Bollinger Shipyards Incorporated for a lead ship and up to 33 additional hulls. The U.S. Coast Guard is currently conducting market research for the FRC/SENTINEL Class re-procurement. The FRC/SENTINEL Class Phase II acquisition will complete the fleet of 58 cutters by acquiring additional hulls.

“Objective: The U.S. Coast Guard invites U.S. shipyards to participate in one-on-one meetings with the FRC Project Manager and staff (FAR 15.201(c)(4)). At this time, the U.S. Coast Guard is interested in meeting only with U.S. shipyards that have the organic capability to design and construct cutters of the FRC’s complexity as described in the U.S. Coast Guard’s 2007 Request for Proposal (RFP): (http://www.uscg.mil/acquisition/sentinel/pdf/frcbrfp.pdf).

“These meetings will be held in the Washington, DC area and are tentatively planned to begin on October 11, 2011. The U.S. Coast Guard will brief all potential offerors on the current status of the reprocurement, to include the FRC’s existing operational requirements and the potential acquisition strategies under consideration for the Phase II reprocurement.”

This could go in at least two different directions.

The Coast Guard has options with Bollinger for additional cutters up to a total of 34, but they are not contractually committed to continue exclusively with Bollinger. Since Bollinger is under contract to provide the design package for the Webber Class, the Coast Guard could invite yards to bid competitively to build additional Webber Class.

On the other hand the RFI specifically states, “…the U.S. Coast Guard is interested in meeting only with U.S. shipyards that have the organic capability to design and construct cutters of the FRC’s complexity as described in the U.S. Coast Guard’s 2007 Request for Proposal (RFP).” So it appears that they may also consider other designs that meet the original design requirements.

There is also the very slim possibility that the Coast Guard could build a high-low mix of two different designs in different yards at a rate of more than six vessels a year if it could be sold as a stimulus program.

Related: Fast Response Cutter Alternative? FRC-A? and FRC Alternative?

OPC Draft Specs

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Monday, June 20, was the deadline for industry comments on the draft specs for the Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC). I wasn’t privy to the draft, but did have a limited opportunity to discuss them with someone who was, so I’ll offer my own, admittedly unsolicited, comments. Our last substantial discussion of the ships’ characteristics was here. The general description doesn’t seem to have changed much since the last presentation to industry–go here, and select “Industry Day Presentation” for a pdf of the slides.

Conceptual Rendering of the OPC

The selection criteria (section M of the RFP) was not included in the draft. Perhaps the Coast Guard thought it would be premature, or perhaps they were unable to reach a consensus before the draft specs were released, but this was unfortunate, in that the vendors were unable to comment on how the selection criteria will influence the design. Additionally, in the interim they will be unable to proceed in any meaningful way, in formulation of the design.

The draft specs do define a range of characteristics, a minimum threshold and a higher desired level, but without a selection criteria, it is impossible for the vendor to determine if meeting the higher criteria will help him get the contract. Is it a significant selling point or just nice to have? If value is not specified in some way, it may mean that the minimums are the only truly relevant specifications. The selection criteria drives everything and unless you can define your priorities, and how much it is worth to you, it is unlikely you will get what you really want. One way to do this might be to assign a monetary value to higher levels of performance, with perhaps a formula for identifying the value of intermediate levels of performance. How much is going from an 8,500 mile range to a 9,500 mile range worth? To go 25 knots instead of 22? If you can’t decide this before the request for proposal (RFP), it’s going to be very hard to explain why you want to give the contract to a higher bid with more capability when it’s time to make the award. Ambiguity can lead to protracted legal disputes. Continue reading →

Studying in the Coast Guard, Bad news for FRC

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Navy Times is reporting that the House of Representatives is miffed at the Coast Guard for failing to provide three studies they have requested. Reading between the lines, it appears that the studies have been done, but the Department of Homeland Security or the administration did not like the results and is quibbling.

There is also bad news on the Fast Response Cutter (FRC) program here with an FY 2012 cut from six to four vessels.

“The report also notes that the first fast response cutter, under construction at Bollinger Marine in Lockport, La., is suffering from structural deficiencies that will delay its delivery, originally scheduled for this spring. The committee cut two cutters from the budget request for six and directed the service to hold off on expanding the annual FRC request from four to six until the first ship is delivered and has undergone operational test and evaluation.”

Who is really to blame for delaying the studies is not something we can determine, but the effect of all this is more dithering, ships getting too decrepit to do their jobs, and an inability to conduct SAR and enforce US law in the Arctic and far Pacific EEZ.

Not having a completed study is just an excuse for inaction on the part of the Administration and Congress. I hate to allow them that excuse, but while we may not know what the final fleet size should be, it is pretty obvious, we need to build more ships and faster. We need to start building OPCs yesterday and down the road will be soon enough to decide when we have enough.

Related: Fleet Mix Where Are the Trade-offs and DIY Fleet Mix Study

 

 

Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC) Update, 6 May 2011

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Conceptual Rendering of the OPCThe Acquisitions Directorate released their draft specifications for the Offshore Patrol cutter (OPC) Monday, May 2. This is certainly a welcome step, but in some ways it seems the plan ahead has gotten murkier rather than clearer. The description of the ship available to the public has, over time, become more general rather than more specific, and the timing of critical events is now more uncertain.

This release comes five to six months after the previously announced planned release date, as had been published on their website until it was changed this week. Currently the only milestone with a projected date on the Acquisitions Directorate website is “May – June 20, 2011 – Draft Specification Review” everything else is TBD (to be determined). This was the near term plan as it had been previously published: Continue reading →

Fleet Mix–Where are the Trade-Offs?

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A recent GAO report offers some insight into how the AC&I budget will work for the next few years. The report is accessible here: Coast Guard: Observations on Acquisition Management and Efforts to Reassess the Deepwater Program
GAO-11-535T, Apr 13, 2011
Quick View Quick view toggle Summary (HTML)   Highlights Page (PDF)   Full Report (PDF, 18 pages)   Accessible Text

The thrust of the report seems to be that while the coast Guard has made some progress in managing its own programs since terminating Deepwater there are still a lot of problems and many of them stem from being unrealistic about budget expectations. There also seems to be an underlying frustration because the Coast Guard is not offering real alternatives to the fleet mix proposed by the discredited “Deepwater” program.

“We reported in 2009 that the administration’s budget projections indicated that the DHS annual budget was expected to remain constant or decrease over the next decade. When the Coast Guard submitted its fiscal year 2012 budget request, it also released its fiscal years 2012-2016 acquisition capital investment plan. In reviewing this plan, we found that the Coast Guard’s projected funding levels for fiscal years 2013 through 2016 are significantly higher than budgets previously appropriated or requested and therefore may be unrealistic. This unrealistic acquisition budget planning exacerbates the challenges Coast Guard acquisition programs face. As seen in figure 2, the average annual budget plan from fiscal year 2012-through fiscal year 2016 is about $520 million, or approximately 37 percent, higher than the average Coast Guard acquisition budgets previously appropriated or requested during the past 6 years.”

Continue reading →