The 420-foot cutter Bertholf, flagship of the Coast Guard’s troubled “Deepwater” fleet, will be a year late and nearly 100-percent over-budget when it finally gets commissioned this fall, assuming there are no further delays and cost increases. This according to recent press reports and a new study by the Government Accountability Office. Maritime consultant Tim Colton has recreated a table from the GAO report that tracks rising costs on Bertholf and her two sister ships. Bertholf went from $385 million to $640 million:
Another five NSCs are planned, but the Coast Guard has recently implied that it might cancel two of them to save money. On top of poor oversight, shoddy design and bad workmanship, Deepwater’s major builder now faces manpower shortages, according to Northrop Grumman shipbuilding boss Mike Petters:
There are not enough people at the shipyard in Newport News to do all of the work that Northrop Grumman has to do. There is not enough people on the Gulf Coast to do all the work that Northrop Grumman has to do for the Navy and the Coast Guard. How are we going to make all that work?
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This post will be included in Maritime Monday 102 (to be posted on 17 March) on gCaptain.
Thanks!
According to highly sensitive ICGS documents that “somehow leaked” (likely due to bad TEMPEST) the NCS was supposed to come in at double the original budgeted cost. According to those documents this jump in the project cost was planned from day one.
Good grief.
[...] talking about the cutter Bertholf, a ship with its own troubles, including flawed construction and dramatic price increases such as the doubling of its original [...]