Construction of Two Icebreakers at Bollinger Shipyards Progresses

The hull of the first heavy polar icebreaker for the Coast Guard is taking shape after years of delays on the Gulf Coast. The stern sections of the future USCGC Polar Sentinel (WMSP-21) are now standing almost four stories high in the middle of the Bollinger Mississippi shipyard. As of early August, the stern section of the future Polar Security Cutter was positioned to be welded in place.

Bollinger has overseen the project since it inherited the contract when it bought the yard from V.T. Halter in 2022. V.T. Halter won the initial 2019 for an estimated cost of $2.7 billion for three hulls. Last year, the Coast Guard awarded a $951.6 million contract to Bollinger to adjust for the cost increase for the production of ice breaker. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the cost for three hulls to be at $5.1 billion.

From the government side, the Coast Guard and Naval Sea Systems Command, which is overseeing the program on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security, have wrestled with the complexities of the Polar Security Cutter program for the better part of a decade. In June, the Government Accountability Office said Polar Sentinel would deliver in 2033 due in part to, “poor program management and lack of insight into the extent of challenges, which stemmed in part from government and contractor inexperience,” according to the GAO report.

Both the Coast Guard and Bollinger affirmed the schedule for Polar Sentinel as part of a 2025 $951.6 million contract adjustment for the program. Likewise, in July, Bollinger officials told Congress the program was tracking to a 2030 delivery with 33 of the 85 modules of the ship under construction with an estimated 43 to be underway by the end of the year.

Two hours away in Houma, La., a second Bollinger-led ice breaker program is taking shape in Bollinger Houma and partner Edison Chouest Offshore’s LaShip yards. Starting in April, the first steel sheets of Bollinger’s Arctic Security Cutter variant were welded together in bays at LaShip, just across the Houma Navigation Canal. 

The two versions of the Arctic Security Cutters, developed as part of the Trump administration’s shipbuilding push, are being built in shipyards in Finland and the U.S. The Bollinger design is being built in parallel with the Rauma Marine Constructions on the Gulf of Bothnia. Canadian shipbuilder Davie is building a separate Arctic Security Cutter design in Helsinki and in Texas.

The initial request for proposal for the Arctic Security Cutters went out in November, and Bollinger met with Rauma and Seaspan. The long-lead contract was awarded the just after Christmas with Bollinger starting assembly two months ahead of the formal construction contract, USNI News reported in July. To accelerate the schedule, Bollinger leveraged more than a dozen facilities and 4,000 employees around the region and the relationship with LaShip.

LaShip is building the mid-body of the first ASC, while, nearby, Bollinger Larose is building the bow and stern sections, and Bollinger Gulfport is building the superstructure before all the pieces come together in Houma.