Deal buys parts for Coast Guard’s 5th NSC - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Deal buys parts for Coast Guard’s 5th NSC

The Coast Guard announced Wednesday that it had exercised an $89 million contract option with Northrop Grumman to begin buying major parts and materials for the construction of its fifth national security cutter.

The service plans to build eight NSCs, which will replace the aged high endurance cutters.

The components, or long lead time materials, include the cutter’s engines, integrated control system, switchboards, generators and steel plating, according to the release.

The option was part of the construction contract for the fourth NSC signed in November.

Northrop will build the cutter at its shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., where the Bertholf and Waesche were constructed and where Stratton is nearing completion. Stratton should enter service in the late this year and NSC 4 in fiscal 2014.

The Coast Guard’s top officer had indicated at last week’s Surface Navy Association Symposium that a contract involving the fifth NSC was imminent.

Adm. Robert Papp said getting the eight NSCs online was his No. 1 priority, and described in detail the service’s dire need to replace its aging fleet of cutters, some of which entered service in the 1960s.

“Of the 12 major cutters we sent for Haitian relief operations, 10 of them — fully 83 percent — suffered severe breakdowns that limited their capabilities and their performance,” Papp said Jan. 12 in Arlington, Va. “Two were forced to return to port for emergency repairs. One had to proceed to an emergency dry-dock availability.

“For a very long time we’ve been relying on outdated and rapidly aging ships, and we’ve got to reverse this trend.”