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Future USCGC Pickering (Image: Austal USA)
“The court last month ruled against Eastern Shipbuilding, which had appealed the Coast Guard’s decision. The court unsealed the case documents Dec. 14, though with some redactions.”
There is a link to the 42-page court document, but really there is a lot more here than just the decision.
Eastern’s offer was judged better in several respects, but Austal’s price and indoor assembly facility were deciding factors.
“Ultimately, Austal’s proposal came to $3.22 billion, or about $292 million per hull, according to the unsealed documents.
“Eastern’s price is redacted in the documents but is characterized as a “very large price differential.””
It was noted,
“…only one OPC could be built in the indoor facility at a time, meaning the heel-to-toe production cadence could lend itself to “notable disruptions” to schedule.”
This suggests to me, that Austal might have trouble building more than two OPCs a year if the Coast Guard wanted to accelerate OPC production.
The paragraph below may refer to the same presentation by RAdm Jacoby discussed earlier, where he expressed a sense of urgency regarding the OPC program, but there is also an admission that maintaining the Medium Endurance Cutters has become problematic.
Coast Guard acquisition chief Rear Adm. Chad Jacoby said at a recent conference there’s no current plan to have both yards build concurrently into the future but that he’d be open to it if lawmakers increased annual OPC spending, since it’s “urgent” to get OPCs into the fleet to replace “the medium endurance cutters, which are struggling to maintain operational capability right now.”