Bollinger wins major USCG contract

Lockport-based Bollinger Shipyards in the US has won a contract for U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) patrol boats that could be worth as much as $1.5 billion. If fully exercised, it would be the largest in the firm?s history.

In the deal, which officials said was more than two years in the making, the privately held shipbuilder will design and build as many as 34 units each measuring 46.7 metres long by 7.7 metres wide and will be powered by two TIER II diesel engines rated at 4,295kW. The cutters will be built in Bollinger’s Lockport shipyard over the next six to eight years.

The deal comes as the Terrebonne-Lafourche area?s shipbuilding industry continues to boom, barely six months after Galliano-based Edison Chouest broke ground on the $100 million LaShip boat-construction development at the Port of Terrebonne, one of the largest economic-development projects in the state?s history.

According to the USCG, the Sentinel-class boats, based on a design from the Dutch Damen shipyards, will be able to travel at more than 28 knots, hold 22 crew members, and be at sea for up to five days at a time. They?ll be for missions such as search-and-rescue, patrols for drugs and illegal immigrants and homeland security, and will be equipped with five machine guns and top communications, intelligence and defence systems.

The company has been working on a series of Marine Protector class patrol boats since 1999 and will deliver the 75th of those next year.

The first cutter will be delivered in September 2010 to its homeport in Miami. At the peak of production Bollinger will be delivering a new cutter every eight weeks.