The Coast Guard in December issued a solicitation for industry design studies aimed at reducing risk on the service’s forthcoming heavy polar icebreaker program and to refine the specifications for the ship.
The Request for Quote (RFQ) says the Coast Guard plans to award up to five design study contracts valued at up to $4 million each. The Dec. 22 RFQ says the design studies will be awarded to contract that can build and design, or that have a plan for achieving production capability to build and design, heavy polar icebreakers.
Responses are due by Jan. 6 with awards expected by March 7. The awards will have a four-month base period plus options.
“Design studies and analyses must identify solutions for the Heavy Polar Icebreaker that minimize costs, schedule, production and technology risk,” says the RFQ. The studies will help the “government in achieving an affordable solution that can be produced on an accelerated schedule,” it says.
The Coast Guard says it needs at least to new heavy icebreakers to ensure access to the Arctic and Antarctica. The service currently operates the heavy icebreaker Polar Star, which was commissioned in 1976 and is expected to remain in service until 2020 to 2023, and the medium icebreaker Healy, which was commissioned in 2000.
The heavy icebreakers are expected to cost about $1 billion apiece. A Request for Information issued by the Coast Guard last October said the service plans to buy three of the vessels. A notional schedule released last year puts release of the Request for Proposals in mid-FY ’18 with the lead ship due to be delivered in the third or fourth quarter of FY ’23.
Information released with the RFQ says accelerating the vessel design and construction schedule by a year should be investigated for its impact on the program.