Austal USA Starts Construction on Second OPC for Coast Guard

MOBILE, Ala. –  Austal USA started construction on its second Heritage-class Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC), Icarus (WMSM 920).  Like Pickering (WMSM 919), Icarus is being built at the company’s Mobile, Ala. ship manufacturing facility as part of a contract that includes options for up to 11 cutters with a potential value of $3.3 billion.  

“Construction on the first OPC is well underway and we are excited to begin building our second OPC, Icarus,” commented, Harley Combs, vice president surface programs. “Our steel production line is running smoothly with all of the steel modules under construction for Pickering.” 

To accommodate Austal USA’s unique build strategy, the engineering and production teams collaborated to optimize the stage 1 OPC hull structure design to reduce weight, resulting in a more efficient build process and increasing the life expectancy of the vessel.  The Austal USA team also developed a 3-D model for the cutter early in the design process. This allowed each module to be outfitted to a significantly higher percentage than industry benchmarks.   

Icarus is the second USCG cutter to bear the name. The first Icarus, WPC 110, was commissioned in 1932 and was the first Coast Guard ship to sink an enemy submarine during World War II and the first to bring foreign POWs to America since the War of 1812.   

The 360-foot OPC will provide the majority of the Coast Guard’s offshore presence conducting a variety of missions including law enforcement, drug and migrant interdiction, and search and rescue.  With a range of 10,200 nautical miles at 14 knots and a 60-day endurance period, each OPC will be capable of deploying independently or as part of task groups, serving as a mobile command and control platform for surge operations such as hurricane response, mass migration incidents and other events. The cutters will also support Arctic objectives by helping regulate and protect emerging commerce and energy exploration in Alaska. 

Including Icarus, Austal USA has seven ships under construction.  A new assembly building will be used to support the final assembly of the Offshore Patrol Cutters is under completion.  When complete the building  will provide 192,000 square feet of new covered manufacturing space.  The building will consist of three bays, two of which are specifically designed to erect the OPC.