Despite recommendation, Coast Guard will begin construction of Polar Cutter before finalizing design

By Malte Humpert (GCaptain) –

Congressional hearing regarding status of Coast Guard polar security cutter The program revealed ongoing design challenges and little certainty regarding timelines.

Vice Admiral Paul Thomas, deputy commandant for Mission Support, suggested to the committee that the Coast Guard aims to begin construction on the first polar security cutter before the end of the year.

When pressed by Representative Carlos Gimenez, chairman of the Transportation and Maritime Security Subcommittee, on when construction would actually begin, Thomas replied: “December.”

“I’ll hold you to that. Jimenez replied, “I’ll see you back here in December, I’ll call you.”

Expert witnesses from the Government Accountability Office, the Congressional Research Service, and the Congressional Budget Office repeatedly expressed skepticism about the Coast Guard’s indicated timeline.

Mr. Labes, an expert witness for the Congressional Budget Office, said that “hope” was the best word he could come up with when describing the construction timeline.

Mr Jimenez asked: “You said the Coast Guard is hoping to start construction later this year. But didn’t they also expect the first icebreaker to be commissioned this year?

“Yes, I used the word ‘hope’. That was the best term I could offer, given the difficult history of this program,” Mr. Labbs replied. Will be explained in detail in a new CBO report expected this summer The cost of the program increased by 60 percent,

sing testimony and a new report It was revealed that the functional design is currently only 67 percent complete.

Shelby Oakley, director of contracts and national security acquisitions at GAO, cautioned, “GAO recommends completing 100 percent functional design by the time you begin construction.”

Jimenez asked, confirming whether he had heard correctly. “And they are at 67 percent design completion after 5 years?”

“Yes, 67 percent to 100 percent is a lot of work. There is still a lot of work to be done before the end of the year,” Oakley confirmed.

The expert panel reiterated several times during testimony that the Coast Guard’s construction timelines were subject to “a culture of optimism while ignoring historical reality.”

In fact, the Coast Guard’s progress in finalizing the design has been extremely slow. Based on the latest GAO data, functional design completion has increased by only 10 percent since the last GAO update in March 2023.

Even based on the Coast Guard’s own goal of completing 95 percent of the design before construction, significant work remains.

Oakley reported that the Coast Guard has struggled to finalize a stable design, and warned against proceeding with construction without a final design. “Such a decision would increase the risk to the program.”

“The Coast Guard and the shipbuilder have not estimated how many design changes they will need to make to meet Coast Guard specifications. And they made costly design mistakes, such as designing the ship’s lowest deck at the wrong height,” he further explained.

Vice Admiral Thomas confirmed that the Coast Guard’s goal now is to begin construction without finalizing the design in accordance with GAO recommendations.

“We we currently Prototype module construction It will become part of the ship. When we do this we will not be at the level of design maturity that GAO would like to see [begin construction]” Thomas said.

A witness at the Congressional Research Service, Ron O’Rourke, an expert on naval affairs, said delivery “will now occur no earlier than the end of 2029.”

He suggested that one way to accelerate the procurement would be to build the initial ship at the existing builder Bollinger and later introduce a second builder to build additional PSCs in parallel.

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