The Coast Guard yesterday said it has decided to hold discussions with bidders that remain in the competitive range for designing the service’s next major cutter, a move that will delay the award of up to three preliminary and contract design contracts by at least six months.
The Coast Guard received bids in January from a number of offerors for design of the Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC) but determined that rather than award the design contracts based on those proposals, it would establish a “competitive range comprising the most highly-rated proposals as determined by the evaluation criteria,” the service said. It added that it would conduct those discussions would give the remaining bidders “a limited opportunity to revise and improve their proposals.”
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| Coast Guard conceptual rendering of the OPC. |
A Coast Guard spokesman declined to say how many companies the service will hold discussions with due to “source selection sensitivities.” He added that without the opportunity for companies to have these discussions, “any failure to meet a material terms of the contract (a deficiency), even if it is minor and/or easily correctable, makes a proposal ineligible for award.”
The design contracts were planned for FY ’13 but now will be made in the second quarter of FY ’14, which runs between January and March of 2014. When the Coast Guard released the Request for Proposals (RFP) for the OPC in September 2012, plans at the time called for award of the design contracts at the end of the third quarter of FY ’13.
Following the design phase, the Coast Guard currently plans to award a single detailed design contract for the OPC during the second quarter of FY ’16, roughly three to six months later than planned when the RFP was issued. During the detailed design phase the winning contractor would receive a contract to begin construction of the first of 25 planned medium-endurance cutters.
The OPC is intended to replace the Coast Guard’s aging fleet of 210-foot and 270-foot medium endurance cutters and will include increased range and endurance, more powerful weapons, a larger flight deck, and improved C4ISR equipment. The vessel is also expected to accommodate aircraft and small boat operations in all weather.
The Coast Guard’s two other major cutter acquisitions are for the Fast Response Cutter (FRC), which is typically for search and rescue operations as well as other missions that are conducted close to shore, and the high-endurance National Security Cutter (NSC), which remains at sea for months at a time. The Coast Guard is currently procuring FRCs from Bollinger Shipyards and NSCs from Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII].