As with fellow competitor Bollinger Shipyards, Eastern Shipbuilding Group and General Dynamics [GD] both include foreign shipbuilders in their respective designs for the first design phase of the United States Coast Guard’s potential $10 billion Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC) program
General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works shipbuilding unit on Friday said its OPC design is based on a variant of Spain’s Navantia S.A.’s Buque de Accion Maritima (BAM) offshore patrol vessels built for the Spanish Navy. GD said the BAM is an established, in-service ship that the Spanish Navy uses for OPC-like missions.
GD said that Bath Iron Works and Navantia have collaborated on work for more than 30 years. Navantia also makes offshore patrol vessels for Venezuela’s Navy.
GD’s team also includes L-3 Communications [LLL], which is the C4ISR integrator, responsible for development and integration of the ship’s combat and communication’s suite. L-3 is also on Bollinger’s team (Defense Daily, Feb. 12).
GD said the contract is an important step toward expanding its customer base and maintaining its design and manufacturing work. The Coast Guard is a new shipbuilding customer.
“We will…continue our yard-wide actions to ensure we can build these ships affordably, safely and on, or ahead of, schedule,” Fred Harris, president of Bath Iron Works, said in a statement.
Eastern Shipbuilding’s teammates include Canada’s STX Marine and Northrop Grumman [NOC]. Eastern, which is based in Florida, hasn’t done work for the Coast Guard previously.
STX has designed and built offshore patrol vessels for several foreign naval and coast guard customers. Eastern builds fishing vessels, offshore supply ships, ferries and other commercial ships. With a nod to affordability being the central requirement of the Coast Guard for the OPC, the company said that it has built “110 vessels on-time and on-budget since 2002.”
Bollinger said on Wednesday that its OPC entry is based on a parent craft design by the Dutch shipbuilder Damen. In addition to L-3, the company’s team also includes ship designer Gibbs & Cox.
The Coast Guard awarded Bollinger and Eastern $22 million apiece and General Dynamics $21.4 million for the 18-month preliminary and contract design phase of the OPC program. The service is expected to select one company in FY ’16 for detailed design and construction of the 25-ship OPC fleet.
Bollinger currently is building the Fast Response Cutter for the Coast Guard and Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII] is making the National Security Cutter.