Artists rendering from Eastern Shipbuilding Group
Two articles report that additional delays to both the future USCGC Argus and USCGC Chase appear likely.
- “Coast Guard Says Main Drive Shaft Issue Puts OPC Delivery Schedule ‘At Risk’”–Forbes
- “Drive shaft issue could impact delivery of OPC 1”–Marine Log
The Marine Log article refers to the Forbes article but appears focused on drive shaft irregularities,
“We received shafting for OPC Hulls 1 and 2 that were not in compliance with the NAVSEA requirements called for in the OPC vessel specifications. These two sets of shafting were delivered to our facility with signed and stamped certificates of approval from the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), the U.S. Government-mandated certification authority for the OPC Program, certifying that they were in physical compliance with the ABS approved design artifacts,” said Eastern Shipbuilding Group President Joey D’Isernia. “We later discovered that both shipsets of shafting were non-compliant due to having out of tolerance physical dimensions. This issue was discovered during shaft installation on OPC Hull 1. The Coast Guard, Rolls-Royce [the supplier of the shafts] , and ABS were made aware of the problem immediately and they each had on-site representatives overseeing shaft installation. We are working closely with ABS, Rolls-Royce, and the USCG to resolve this issue as soon as possible. In the meantime, we are coordinating with the Coast Guard to advance post launch production and test activities to be completed prior to launch, in order to mitigate delivery schedule impacts and launch the ship at an even greater level of completion.”
The Forbes article is a more comprehensive look at Eastern progress, or lack there of, on the project. Its worth reading both.