The next fast cutters the US Coast Guard will build are based on the Damen Stan Patrol 4708 design out of the Netherlands and will be built by Bollinger Shipyards in Louisiana. The Coast Guard will make the announcement tomorrow morning.
The Damen design (pictured above) utilizes a steel hull, aluminum superstructure, is 153 feet long. It is waterjet/diesel powered.
The USCG Fast Response Cutter (FRC), Sentinel-Class patrol boat will have a top speed of 28 knots, a stern launch capability and will be armed with one stabilized, remotely-operated 25 mm chain gun and four crew-served .50-caliber machine guns. It will be able to operate independently for five days at sea and be underway for 2,500 hours per year. The FRC will accommodate 22 crew and feature a state-of-the-market command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance system.
The first FRC of a possible 37 will be delivered to Coast Guard District Seven, based in Miami, in the fall of 2010.
UPDATE: OCtober 16, 2008: Marinette Marine Corp., the marine division of Manitowoc Co., has appealed an award of a government contract, valued at up to $1.5 billion, for construction of U.S. Coast Guard cutters by a Louisiana shipyard, on October 8. [One reason is Bollinger’s involvement in the $100 million snafu, in which conversion efforts of the 110-foot cutters failed, thus disallowing Bollinger to bid on the new product, according to a Lockheed Martin designer involved in the botch vessel extension]
It could be months before Marinette learns whether its protest of the contract award is successful. Historically only about two or three percent of such awards are overturned on appeal.
The Department of Justice is investigating what went wrong, and who was to blame, for the failed effort to convert the older, smaller vessels into something bigger and better. — Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 9, 2008.
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