MOBILE, Ala. – A robotic plasma cutter sliced through a steel panel on a muggy Mobile afternoon to mark the ceremonial start of construction on Austal USA’s first Offshore Patrol Cutter.
The panel will be one of thousands that will form the future USCGC Pickering (WMSM-919), the first of 11 planned Heritage-class OPCs awarded to the Alabama yard.
Austal USA is the second yard to build ships as part of what the Coast Guard calls its most important acquisition program. The fleet of 25 OPCs will operate close to the U.S., while the larger Legend-class National Security Cutters take on more of the Coast Guard’s international missions, Rear Adm. Campbell, director of acquisitions program for the Coast Guard, told USNI News on Thursday, shortly after he hit a large red button activating the plasma cutter.
The OPC fleet will replace the Famous-class and Reliance-class Coast Guard cutters that are more than 50 years old and responsible for the bulk of the service’s missions close to U.S. shores, Campbell said.
The 4,500-ton cutters have a range of 10,200 nautical miles, are crewed by 126 Coast Guard members and can embark an MH-60T Jayhawk or an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter and a ship-launched unmanned aerial vehicle.
The start of fabrication at Austal’s steel line in Mobile marks the second yard now building OPCs.
“[Pickering] still has a couple years until it’s produced. But the first four [are] in production right now, in our stage one yard over at Eastern,” Campbell told USNI News.
“All four of those ships have been in construction already, so they’re ahead of this one.
Eastern Shipbuilding in Panama City, Fla., won a contract for the first hull in 2016 and three follow-on options before the Coast Guard moved the business to Austal USA as the “stage two” yard as part of a $208.3 million award in 2022. Eastern, which suffered extensive hurricane damage in 2018, filed a lawsuit in federal court protesting the award. A court ruled against Eastern last year and affirmed the award to Austal.
The combined delays from the hurricane damage and the legal actions have pushed the delivery of the first OPC Argus (WMSM-915) from 2021 to sometime next year. Eastern launched Argus in November.
“She’ll be getting underway in the winter. Dock trails start probably in January and get underway in the early spring and the acceptance trails in [the] third quarter of [Fiscal Year 2025],” Campbell told USNI News.
“It’ll be a phased approach where we do dockside trials. Then builders trials to make sure all the systems work underway at sea and then acceptance trials, where the Coast Guard takes ownership.”
The award of the OPC contract two-years ago was one of the first steel ships for Austal, a yard with a pedigree of building aluminum ships including Independence-class Littoral Combat Ships and Spearhead-class fast transports.
The Navy commissioned the second-to-last Independence-class LCS – USS Kingsville (LCS-36) – in Corpus Christi, Texas, last week.