Offshore Patrol

  • In September, 2016, an U.S. shipyard and the Canadian design business of an Italian-owned Norwegian shipyard won the largest vessel procurement contract in U.S. Coast Guard history. Now, Eastern Shipbuilding will build nine — and possibly many more — Vard Marine designs in its Panama City, Fla., shipyard. Early impressions are of a unique vessel not so unlike comparable European designs by Vard Holdings or parent company Fincantieri. An oceangoing hull of clean, classic — some would say Canadian — lines are the platform for an electronics and weapons payload designed, in part, for (naval) task force command-and-control.
     
    There’s much to do at Eastern Shipbuilding. Already, long-lead supply chain orders have gone out for the full nine cutters (one to start with options for eight more). It is understood that two more might be contracted out of a USCG goal of 25 offshore patrol cutters, or OPCs. The family owned Eastern and the globalized Vard Marine in Vancouver will first use the $110.3 million award “to complete detail design” and start accommodating Coast Guard superintendents while perfecting drawings ahead of a building start in 2018. “Vard Marine will be responsible for the functional design of the hull structure and will retain control of the naval architecture aspects of the design through to completion of (the current) Phase II,” Vard Marine president and CEO, Dave McMillan, tells Maritime Reporter. Vard and Eastern collaborated for two years to submit the USCG proposal. McMillan says there were “many components” that lead to success. His team was also tasked with the “consulting and proprietary design of the base vessel.” 
     
    Eastern Vindication
    For Vard Holdings, with offices in Canada and the United States, these are early returns for gaining a foothold in two North American markets with giant national shipbuilding programs underway. According to the Coast Guard, the full Phase II design-and-build award has a potential value of $2.38 billion “if all options are exercised.” Budget documents suggest that number is roughly evenly split between 2016 and 2017.
     
    “It’s the most prestigious offshore patrol project in the offshore patrol segment,” said Vard executive vice-president for business development, Holger Dilling, taking time out in western Norway from Vard Holdings’ financial reporting in Singapore, where they’ve recently listed. “We’re happy with the position this gives us.”
     
    For Eastern, winning the tender is vindication for spending $75 million dollars to upgrade and expand its fabricating capacity. The Florida builder with two shipyards in Panama City has worked with Vard Marine for a decade on successful commercial designs, especially offshore service vessels, or OSVs. For Eastern, the Coast Guard award ushers in a new era by preparing the slip for future commercial and public builds. Investments in new, modular construction has only just added to Eastern’s conventional ship assembly, tipping the scales for a Coast Guard that admittedly focused on “management”. The cutter confirms Eastern facilities as “some of the most modern and efficient” in the country. Now, “Business is booming … at never-before-seen heights,” Eastern heralded in celebration. The yard has delivered 150, mostly mid-sized vessels of up to 433 ft. Their triumph comes at the expense of eight shipbuilders that provided draft OPC designs and, especially, of the shortlisted General Dynamics Bath Iron Works and Bollinger Shipyards, two veteran naval shipyards.
     
    VARD 7  110 
    While Eastern has reportedly bolstered its engineering department in response to the order, Vard Holdings in Norway has hired “30 percent more naval architects and design engineers” this summer alone. Though partly cruise-ship driven, the Vard Group has delivered 300 vessels since 2000 and sees brighter days. Now with the detail design secured and the cutter project’s delivery due in 2021, Dilling could safely say Vard is “entering” the offshore patrol vessel segment (OPVs). 
     
    When the list of competing designs was shortlisted to three early in 2016, the USCG said the winners would win on drawings, management, the vessel’s “(re)producibility” and price. “The OPC is the most affordable way to meet the service’s long-term need for cutters,” United States Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Paul Zukunft is quoted as saying. Zukunft’s list also included an ability to work with international players. Eastern, the commercial shipbuilder, has found partners in Vard Holdings and Fincantieri with a long CV of projects for world navies and coast guards, including the Irish, Italian, Maltese and U.A.E. McMillan said he looks forward to “supporting” Eastern in building another naval vessel, and Eastern has delivered at least one Vard Marine design every year for the past decade, a list that includes six support vessels for offshore oil and gas. 
     
    Shared Designs
    Vard’s McMillan confirms the VARD 7 110 OPC is the contract design selected to be the basis of the fleet, “However there is still room for changes to be made at the USCG’s discretion,” he adds. Yet, the basis of the winning design was the Vard 7 090 OPV, a 296 ft vessel capable of 23-knots and already in service with the Irish Naval Service. Three are in service and a fourth is under construction.
     
    The Vard 7 090 does look a little more like the Vard 7 100, a 98-meter arctic OPV vessel design with serious (meter-thick ice) ice-breaking ability that makes 17 knots in open water. Zukunft’s budget suggests at least one cutter, or an immediate separate order, will be arctic capable, and Vard and Canadian engineering consultancy BMT Fleet are already understood to be working on project documents for a Canadian “arctic offshore patrol ship” of Vard 7 100 type. 
     
    Should the Coast Guard ask for specs or ideas that aid in criminal interdiction work, Vard parent Fincantieri’s own 180 ft. Diciotti and Dattilo-classes are regulars of migrant and criminal intercept work in the Mediterranean Sea. The USCG, however, wanted a helideck and place for three rubber inflatables. The Italian-built vessels only seem to accomodate one dingy and no helicopter. To compare, Zukunft’s cutters will be 360 ft. long; 54 ft. at the beam; have a 17-ft. draft: a range of 10,000 nautical miles at 14 knots; 60 days of endurance; tw 16-volt marine diesel engines; two five-blade and controllable pitch propellers that’ll achieve a top speed of more than 22 knots. There’s plenty of room for a helicopter and three RIBs.
     
    Supply Chain
    Vard didn’t say what Vard equipment, if any, will be aboard the OPC, but the Coast Guard promises a robust capability. A “sophisticated combat system” and a C4ISR communication suite will be onboard, and this will allow the OPV to be brought into action together with other Coast Guard vessels or as part of a larger combat ship group. 
     
    “The offshore patrol cutter acquisition is the Coast Guard’s highest investment priority,” Admiral Zukunft, has been quoted as saying. In addition to fighting “criminal networks off Central America” the Vard 7 110’s will also patrol the “increasingly accessible Arctic”, a theatre which might require a more closed superstructure, more akin to the Vard 7 100. U.S. “economic interests” will also be enforced with the new boat, a nod to all that goes on out in the nation’s 200-nautical-mile economic zone.
     
    “The OPC will bridge the capabilities” of the 418-ft national security cutters and 154-foot fast response cutters by replacing the 270-foot and 210-foot medium endurance cutters, now up to 50 years old,” the Service says. A Coast Guard management unit called OPC PRO will oversee construction of the cutter from an on-site facility Eastern is expected to build during winter 2016-2017. All augers well for Eastern potentially replacing more of the 25 mid-water or “medium endurance” cutters with 25 Vard 7 110’s — and perhaps a Vard 7 100. The Canadian Navy is understood to be pursuing these vessels for its own cold-water patrols.
     
    Nod to NATO
    If Canadian and Norwegian design expertise was given the nod, then so too was Vard’s parent company Fincantieri. 
     
    Owned by the Italian state via Fintecna, Fincantieri doubled after its acquisition of Vard to become the fourth largest shipbuilder in the world and the largest in the Med. As we wrote these words, Financtieri’s Trieste-based minds were making a friendly offer for the 44 percent of Vard they don’t own. It’s worth noting that in January 2009, Fincantieri bought Manitowoc Marine Group and its two yards in Wisconsin, including the Marinette Marine that built the first Freedom Class littoral combat ship. So, Eastern, it seems, has a rival and a friend in Fincantieri, another maker of mid-sized vessels for the U.S. Navy. So, who knows what may be next from U.S. military-industrial strategists keen to share financial resources with capable NATO allies while also creating jobs at home. For now, all eyes will be on those remaining OPVs.
     
     
    (As published in the December 2016 edition of Maritime Reporter & Engineering News)

     

  • Group today?We see a lot of opportunity in the defense sector, which is why we have dedicated our Nelson St. Shipyard to the U.S. Coast Guard Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC) program. We are committed to delivering high quality, innovative, and efficient OPCs to the men and women of the Coast Guard on or

  • Vigor’s shipyard staff and last – but certainly not least – a highest profile effort underway to secure the brass ring of the Coast Guard’s new Offshore Patrol Cutter replacement program. Any one of those efforts would be fodder for a closer look; together they represent the potential emergence of a new

  • and 270-foot Famous (also known as the Bear class for the lead ship of 13 ships) medium endurance cutters, which will be the yet-to-be-determined Offshore Patrol Cutter or OPV. National Security Cutter Four of the new NSCs have joined the fleet, with three based on the Pacific coast at Alameda, Calif

  • and deliveries are chronicled below:   Vard Marine Design for New USCG OPC  In the long-awaited decision for the U.S. Coast Guard’s high-profile Offshore Patrol Cutter sweepstakes, Vard Holdings Limited earlier this year announced that a design developed by its subsidiary Vard Marine has been selected

  • , do you have one that stands above and beyond all else?     Every Commandant has a defining moment, and for me it’s going to be the offshore patrol cutter (OPC).  This will be the largest investment in our acquisition history, and 40 years from now this cutter will still be in service.  I

  • designed for silent running. The Devon yard is also building a cargo vessel for Iceland. Hall Russell has come to specialize in offshore patrol vessels of late, although the yard was a traditional trawler builder. A series of five Peacock Class, 200-foot armed offshore patrol vessels

  • build the forward section, funnel and mast section for these ships. In addition, the company is in competition to build additional 262- ft. (80-m) offshore patrol vessels (OPV) for the Royal Navy, a project that would also take advantage of the new complex. Three vessels were previously contracted. and

  • and Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS) announced that preliminary design and final requirements work will commence immediately on the new Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC) program. This effort will lead to a new type of highly capable, cutting-edge, mediumendurance cutter. This accelerates the effort

  • role to play in offshore defense. The symposium will aim to review and discuss the range of tasks likely to be demanded of vessels undertaking offshore patrol duties, whether operated by navies, coast guard or quasimilitary bodies, and the various types of craft—conventional and unconventional —

  • patrol boats will be delivered. The ARESA 2400 CPV Defender is a 24m coastal patrol vessel that can be used for a number of applications such as offshore patrol, border patrol, anti-piracy, anti smuggling, troop transport, and search and rescue missions, amongst others. The ARESA 2400 CPV Fighter is powered

  • range from small pilot and crew boats to our latest 80-metric-ton, Bollard pull tugs and complex OSVs and OCVs.” Designs for military-specification, offshore patrol vessels have been offered to at least two U.S. yards, he said. “Our designs are licensed for markets that include harbor towage, terminal work

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    Wendy Laursen Image above: Kongsberg Digital has integrated NORBIT’s oil spill detection system with its K-Pos DP system for simulation-based training of offshore professionals at Equinor. 34 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • April 2024 MR #4 (34-44).indd 34 4/5/2024 8:43:52 A

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    CRANES & OFFSHORE WIND HLP is developing a crane that will enable tower HLP is developing a crane that will enable pieces to be stacked components such as towers to be stacked in multiple layers on vertically in marshalling areas. installation vessels. HLP is developing a ring crane capable of 6

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    of Mammoet requirement for the development of these cranes, particularly ling area. This would result in a major time and fuel saving. in ? oating offshore wind,” says Adrian Green, Engineering & For ? oating projects, it could reduce project installation time Contracts Director. “Ports are a major

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    CRANES & OFFSHORE WIND Cadeler’s new NG-20000X class vessels will have 2,600t cranes, and its new NG-20000F class vessel will have a 3,200t crane. Similar new vessels for Havfram will have a crane of approximately 3,200t, as will Van Oord’s KNUD E. HAN- SEN-designed newbuilding currently being built in

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    FEATURE Image courtesy of Cadeler NEW CRANES FOR OFFSHORE WIND EFFICIENCY NOV is upgrading the cranes on Cadeler’s existing O-class WTIVs. The end may be in sight, but the race for bigger cranes is still having an impact on offshore wind project ef? ciency. By Wendy Laursen 30 Maritime Reporter

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    , we have ten container and roll on/roll off ships, two expeditionary transfer docks (ESDs) and four expeditionary sea base ships. We also have two offshore petro- leum distribution system ships that help move fuel ashore. Another ten preposition ships support the Army and Air Force. It should be pointed

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    AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES, WE DO NOT SEE A BIG SLOWDOWN FOR OSW DEVELOPMENTS APART FROM THE OBVIOUS PROJECT DELAYS AND RE-BIDS. ROB LANGFORD, VP, GLOBAL OFFSHORE WIND, ABS “Some of them do understand, but I think there’s more work projects and lease areas. Virginia Offshore Wind and Revolu- to do in that regard

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    INTERVIEW One-on-One with ROB LANGFORD, VP, GLOBAL OFFSHORE WIND As the U.S. offshore wind industry endures a predictable number of stops and starts during its adolescence, common mantras are ‘learn from the established European model’ and ‘embrace technology transfer from the offshore oil and gas