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Requirements Balancer

Adm. Robert J. Papp Jr.Commandant U.S. Coast Guard

May 2013Volume 5, Issue 1

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Dedicated to Those Who Are Always Ready

Cleaner, Better Engines O Icebreakers O C4ISR TechnologiesMaritime Domain Awareness O Oil Spill Response O Safety

View from the hillU.S. Representative Howard Coble (R-N.C.)

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Cover / Q&AFeatures

AdmirAl robert J. PAPP Jr.Commandant

U.S. CoaSt GUard

16

May 2013Volume 5, Issue 1U.S. CoaSt gUard forUm

5Despite the Coast Guard’s reputation of doing more with less, this Congressman is convinced that our current asset deployment in the Arctic Region is exceptionally inadequate.By Rep. HowaRd CoBle (R-N.C.)

Departments Industry Interview2 editor’s PersPective3 NAv Notes14 oN the horizoN27 resource ceNter

WilliAm (bill) e. skiNNerChief Executive OfficerVT Halter Marine Shipyard

6dirty busiNessAn oil spill can be disastrous, but the response can be the measure of the event. Pre-planning and technology come together to drive solutions.By peteR BuxBaum

9cleANer, better eNgiNesEngine designers must meet emission rules, but should seek to do much more. Fuel efficiency,

reliability, low maintenance cost, size and weight are also important considerations for customers and thus engine makers. By HeNRy CaNaday

12oN thiN iceChanging Arctic sea ice patterns and traffic create greater need for icebreakers. Can the Coast Guard—and the U.S.—protect its interests with so few icebreakers?By JoHN m. doyle

20PrecAutioN is keyOff-load marine hooks are found on workboats and military vessels around the world and are used to launch fast rescue craft and other similar small manned boats from the deck of a ship using a davit or other similar launch and recovery system. Maintenance and certification of critical parts are key to the safety of life at sea.By miCHael GaBRiel

21mAritime domAiN AWAreNessThe U.S. Coast Guard is charged with protecting the homeland and ensuring the security of our harbors, ports and waterways. But homeland defense does not begin at the border. It begins far from home. Maritime domain awareness requires end-to-end vigilance.By Ned luNdquist

vieW Fromthe hill

“From an operational

perspective, the Coast Guard’s most pressing

need is to invest in recapitalization of the offshore

cutter fleet. Given the

condition of our fleet—many

older than 45 years—we

must continue to recapitalize cutters, boats and aircraft.”

- Adm. Robert J. Papp

28

23

The technological eyes and ears of the Coast Guard. Whether looking for the latest drug-running semi-submersible or a sailor lost at sea—it takes a keen eye with the right tools to get the job done.By Jeff GoldmaN

coAst guArd c4isr techNologies

The Coast Guard is proud of its support in Operation Arctic, an interagency effort that saw them deploy a national security cutter (NSC), two ice-capable buoy tenders and two helicopters 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The NSC performed as expected and was a linchpin to the successful operations.

The fiscal year 2014 budget provides a request for the seventh national security cutter. The ship is critical because of the capabilities that it delivers to the fleet, but also to fill the gap left by the decommissioning of high endurance cutters as they reach the end of their useful service life. As has been discussed in the pages of Coast Guard Forum many times in the past, while the replacement of cutters is not being done on a one-for-one basis, what the NSCs and the fast response cutters bring to the operational toolkit exceeds what the older cutters could provide. While the numbers may decline, overall mission capabilities should increase—so long as the numbers of ships in the fleet never fall below a critical mass.

On the other hand, is nine years a long time or not? That’s about how long the Coast Guard has to sustain the Polar Star until the next-generation icebreaker is projected to be ready. Reacquisition activities are currently being funded (see the chart on page 13) and the Coast Guard and Congress seem committed to moving the project forward. The Coast Guard has allies on the Hill; Representative Howard Coble—himself a former Coastie—is concerned about the country’s ability to project and protect its national interests in the polar arctic region if we are one of the few nations competing in that area without a true heavy icebreaker. As he puts it, we can’t keep doing something with nothing!

Turning inward a little, KMI Media Group is working on the launch of our 12th title, Navy Air/Sea PEO Forum, a magazine focused on the U.S. Navy program executive offices that work the projects that fly and float. Rear Admiral Thomas Moore, PEO Carriers, will be featured on the inaugural cover. We are still building the distribution list for this title, so please reach out to us if this is another of KMI Media Group’s magazines that is in your wheelhouse.

Dedicated to Those Who Are Always Ready

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Compiled by Kmi media Group staffNaV NotES

Newest FRC DeliveredBollinger Shipyards Inc. has delivered the

Margaret Norvell, the fifth fast response cutter (FRC), to the U.S. Coast Guard. The announcement was made by Bollinger Executive Vice President of New Construction, Chris Bollinger. “We are very pleased to announce another successful on-time delivery to the Coast Guard. The Margaret Norvell was delivered to the 7th Coast Guard District in Key West, Fla., and will be stationed at USCG Sector Miami. We are all looking forward to the vessel’s commissioning, as well as honoring and celebrating the heroic acts of Margaret Norvell.”

The 154-foot patrol craft Margaret Norvell is the fifth vessel in the Coast Guard’s Sentinel-class FRC program. To build the FRC, Bollinger Shipyards used a proven, in-service parent craft design based on the Damen Stan Patrol Boat 4708. It has a flank speed of 28 knots, state of the art command, control, communications and computer technology, and a stern launch system for the vesse’ls 2- foot cutter boat. The FRC has been described as an operational game changer, by senior Coast Guard officials.

The Coast Guard took delivery March 21, 2013, in Key West, Fla., and is scheduled to commission the vessel in New Orleans, Louisiana in June 2013.

Each FRC is named for an enlisted Coast Guard hero who distinguished him or herself in the line of duty. This vessel is named after

Coast Guard hero Margaret Norvell for serving admirably for 41 years with the U.S. Lighthouse Service in Louisiana from 1891 to 1932. Her devotion to duty saved the lives of countless sailors as she vigilantly stood the watch. Norvell served as keeper of both the Port Ponchartrain Light and the West End Light.

Contractor Support for Sentinel Cutter

BuildThe contract award for 18 Sentinel-class

cutters has required the establishment of a project residence office (PRO) at the contractors’ facility in Lockport, La. The requested billet structure will remain unfulfilled as a result of limited USCG personnel resources. The Coast Guard, therefore, has issued a solicitation for on-site contractor support services for the PRO. The contractor shall provide design review and validation services in support of the Sentinel-class patrol craft project. The contractor will also provide support tasks to include test inspection and quality assurance for the cutters during construction, shipyard trials, delivery and post-delivery warranty periods.

Broadband Services

The Coast Guard uses Fleet Broadband (FB), Swift-64 and BGAN (Broadband, Swift Broadband) services to support underway cutters, aircraft and Portable SIPRNET Kits (PSK). These services are part of the Inmarsat family of services available commercially. The aviation Swift-64 service is a dial-on-demand service and is being upgraded to the Swift Broadband (SB) Inmarsat service. All Inmarsat services to the Coast Guard are supported 24/7 by the InmarsatGov Network Operations Security Center (NOSC). Each Coast Guard asset with an Inmarsat terminal has a unique subscriber identity module (SIM) that allows tracking of air time. Inmarsat provides a database to the Coast Guard customer that allows tracking of SIM MB levels and performance and activity state of any Coast Guard terminal SIM.

The USCG C4IT Service Center, Telecommunications Information Systems Command has a requirement to provide connectivity to the Coast Guard Data Network (CGONE) to mobile assets (cutters,

airplanes and portable networking kits). These assets when underway, airborne or deployed abroad leverage Inmarsat’s Advances Services (Fleet BGAN) portfolio of air time and support services to provide the path to the Coast Guard Multi-Protocol Labeled Switching GuardianNet network. The GuardianNet network then backhauls all Inmarsat Advances Services connections to the CGONE network. The entire path thus allows our forward deployed units the ability to conduct their multi-mission tasking. This design and connectivity path is installed and has been in effect since 2009.

The Coast Guard is seeking a contract to obtain Inmarsat Advanced Service (Fleet Broadband, Swift Broadband, BGAN) data single corporate access plans (SCAPs). It is the Coast Guard’s intension to purchase air time for up to 50 cutters and up to 40 aircraft. There will be airtime SCAPS for each service (FB, SB, BGAN) and the NOSC and database SIM/SCAP tracking will not be charged.

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Compiled by Kmi media Group staffNaV NotES

H-65 Automatic Flight Control SystemThe Coast Guard operates a fleet of 101

H-65 aircraft. In 2004, a major acquisition to modernize the USCG’s H-65 helicopter was initi-ated as part of the Deepwater Project. This project was later subdivided into six discrete segments to increase capability and extend the life expec-tancy of the H-65 aircraft. The final phase of the project, known as Discrete Segment 6 (DS 6), addresses the remaining subsystem obsolescence issues including installation of the common avionics architecture system and modernizing the aging and increasingly unreliable analog automatic flight control system (AFCS) in the

H-65. This procurement to upgrade the AFCS system is one of the last steps in the modern-ization process. The improved aircraft will be designated as the MH-65E.

A system specification has been developed for the acquisition of a replacement AFCS for the H-65 aircraft. The replacement AFCS will be installed, tested, and refined in accordance with a government defined integration plan. The Coast Guard is seeking a contractor that has and can install a new AFCS system, ideally a drop-in installation capable of being done by a field team at an operational unit.

Coast Guard Academy Christens New

Research Vessel

On April 26, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy chris-tened the Michael J. Greeley, a new research vessel.

The vessel will greatly expand the academy’s capa-bilities to conduct oceanographic research that will enhance the marine science curriculum. The Michael J. Greeley is capable of performing long-distance trips, enabling coursework to take place not only in the Thames River but also in Long Island Sound and beyond. Expanded field operations are expected to translate into expanded laboratory operations, which will enhance hands-on learning opportunities for cadets.

The vessel was acquired as a gift from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Class of ‘61 through the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Alumni Association. The engines and hydraulic equipment was supplied by the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. The boat was designed by Response Marine, Inc., Newburyport, Mass., and built by Viking Welding and Fabrication in Kensington, N.H.

The vessel will be operated by personnel, active duty and civilian, who successfully complete the quali-fication training program.

Sniper Simulation

Laser Shot provides a sniper simulator known as the long range precision shooting simulator (LRPSS). The simulated rifle which has the ability to come with recoil or non-recoil functions contains sensors to allow for trigger pressure, butt stock pressure, the canting of the weapon, ammunition loaded or unloaded, etc. The Laser Shot’s Series II weapon technology allows for customization of various sniper rifles based on customer needs. The rifle can facilitate two types of modified optics, the simulated ACOG and the simulated rifle scope and can be built in custom mountable scopes. There is also an optional simulated spotter scope.

The combined optics give the sniper a high definition 1280x1024 in-optic micro-display that emulates a real world tactical environment.

LRPSS uses Virtual Battlespace 2 (VBS2) simu-lation software, which uses real-world ballistics effects built into its engine, including bullet drop, windage, variety of calibers, shooters angle, and the capability for Laser Shot to customize the ballistic engine to the snipers requirements.

Aids to Navigation Team’s New Facility

The commander of Coast Guard Sector Charleston, Captain Michael White, and members of Coast Guard Aids to Navigation Team (ANT) Georgetown formally celebrated the comple-tion of the ANT’s new facility, located adjacent to Station Georgetown, during a building dedication ceremony.

Members of ANT Georgetown previously shared a small one-room workspace with Station Georgetown.

Improvements include offices for each member of the ANT Georgetown command, ample space to conduct training and an enclosed garage bay with a machine shop where the ANT’s boat can be maintained and repaired in any weather.

The new building will enable ANT Georgetown to improve its service to the community and is more conducive to daily operations, said ANT Georgetown Officer in Charge, Petty Officer 1st Class David Browne. It was custom-built to support the ANT’s primary mission of servicing and maintaining roughly 250 navigational aids used by mariners to mark safe passages.

This is the first time ANT Georgetown has been in its own building, and during the ceremony White told the ANT members the new building is their home, highlighting the fact that they now have the right spaces with the right equipment.

The entire process, from planning to completion, took about five years, said Browne.

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During my tenure in Congress, I have had many opportunities to reflect on my career in the United States Coast Guard. As a past chairman and longtime member of the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee in the House Committee on Transpor-tation and Infrastructure, [I know that] decisions are regularly made regarding mission analysis and strategic asset capabilities. Memories of one of my most enjoyable mission assignments also lead me to articu-late a great concern with our high-latitude region presence. Despite the Coast Guard’s reputation of doing more with less, I am convinced that our current asset deployment in the Arctic Region is exceptionally inadequate.

In June 1956, I was able to utilize a mutual transfer that resulted in my assignment to the USCGC Northwind as it made its way to the Arc-tic Region to resupply ships and radar stations. Known as the Grand Old Lady of the North, the Northwind had a top speed of 13 knots and measured 269 feet. For a Yeoman 2nd Class from the Piedmont of North Carolina, this was truly an adventure, as I bid farewell to the brown bears of my home state and hello to polar bears in the Arctic. Many of the Coasties from that era still remember that the Order of the Blue Nose was an honor, although at times a little bit uncomfortable.

Time has moved on and our mission requirements have increased. Unfortunately, our asset capabilities haven’t kept pace. As recent analy-sis by ABS Consulting has shown, the capacity gap leaves four areas of responsibility vulnerable to mission degradation: defense readiness, ice operations, marine environmental protection, and ports, waterways, and coastal security. We need to rethink our asset capabilities going forward.

Currently we have one icebreaker in service, and that is only a medium icebreaker. The USCGC Healy carries the statutory mission’s workload that should be assigned to a minimum of three heavy and three medium icebreakers. While Healy’s expected service life reaches to 2030, the Coast Guard’s two heavy icebreakers, which were commis-sioned in 1976 and 1977, remain out of active service. Polar Sea is in an inactive status with no plans to reactive her. Polar Star is currently being reactivated for service later next year with an expected service life of seven to 10 years.

Coast Guard’s icebreakers play an important role in supporting and protecting United States interests in the Polar regions. Let’s look at the six national objectives established by National Security Presiden-tial Directive 66 and Homeland Security Directive 25:

1. Meet national security and homeland security needs relevant to the Arctic region.

2. Protect the Arctic environment and conserve its biological resources.

3. Ensure that natural resource management and economic development in the region are environmentally sustainable.

4. Strengthen institutions for cooperation among the eight Arctic nations (the United States, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation and Sweden).

5. Involve the Arctic’s indigenous communities in decisions that affect them.

6. Enhance scientific monitoring and research into local, regional and global environmental issues.

Given the national objectives stated above, you begin to imagine the magnitude of the task at hand and the incredibly vast area the Coast Guard has to monitor. Six percent of the planet’s surface is cov-ered by the Arctic Circle, which is comprised of an ice sheet four times the size of Texas. Some 15.5 million square miles are covered by the Arctic Ocean, which hosts a population of approximately 1.5 million inhabitants. Maintaining a strategic presence over this vast expanse of land is far beyond our current capability.

Two areas of U.S. interest, political and economic, will also help amplify future responsibility. Oil and gas exploration, oil and gas recovery, and the addition of potential shipping lanes will expand Coast Guard obligations, as will the incident risk made more possible by international claims on territorial seas. The five nations that claim these rights are the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway and the Russian Federation. In addition, Iceland, Sweden and Norway also assert rights to territories above the Arctic Circle.

In examining theoretical mixes of Coast Guard assets, including icebreakers, helicopters and forward operating locations, it was deter-mined that a build-out of the icebreaker fleet, along with improved communications, medium range aircraft and advanced aviation loca-tions in Alaska could be a suitable foundation for future operations in the Arctic. Further risk analysis shows that these theoretical force packages, based on fleet increases, could be used to counter future Arctic incidents and would greatly magnify the effectiveness of current assets operating in the Bering Sea.

In plain language, we need to make a real effort to increase the number of icebreakers in service before the situation deteriorates further. In the dwindling days of our mission in Afghanistan, it would be a prudent use of those savings to invest $3 billion over the next two appropriation cycles to guarantee our mission compliance. Doing more with less is a source of pride for all Coasties. Due to lack of atten-tion to this problem, however, our mission has evolved into doing something with nothing. Semper paratus indeed, but we need to be fully funded, too. O

By Rep. HowaRd CoBle (R-N.C.)

Doing Something with Nothing

For more information, contact Editor-In-Chief Jeff mcKaughan [email protected] or

search our online archives for related stories at www.cgf-kmi.com.


VIEW from tHE HILL

aN oil spill CaN Be disastRous, But tHe RespoNse CaN Be tHe measuRe of tHe eveNt.

By peteR BuxBaum

CGf CoRRespoNdeNt

It might be hard to believe, but some good actually emerged from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Because of the magnitude of the incident, British Petroleum, the owner of the well, was motivated to call upon companies to provide ideas for containing and cleaning up the spill. As a result, future oil cleanup crews will have new options on how to respond to a spill.


The explosion that tore through BP’s drilling rig on April 20, 2010, began a human, economic and environmental disaster. An oil discharge continued for 84 days, resulting in the largest oil spill in U.S. waters, an estimated 206 million gallons. Eleven crew members died on that day and others were seriously injured. BP recently agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter in the deaths of the 11 and to pay $4 billion in penalties.

BP also funded the response activities, led by the U.S. Coast Guard and supported by other federal agencies as well as state and local governments, and paid out claims to injured parties esti-mated to eventually total close to $22 billion. As recently as Janu-ary 2013, over 900 response personnel were still on duty and 339 miles of shoreline remained subject to evaluation and/or cleanup.

When a major oil spill occurs, teams provided by local, state and federal agencies act to contain and clean up the spill, and to minimize damage to health and the environment. This National Response System is activated when the National Response Center receives notification of an oil spill. The National Response Center (NRC), a multi-department entity hosted at Coast Guard head-quarters in Washington, D.C., gets the first word when an oil spill occurs.

The Deepwater Horizon incident represents the largest and most disastrous oil spill in U.S. history. Not every oil spill is as tragic or impactful, but they occur with regularity. According to figures supplied by the National Response Center, 32,551 oil and chemical spills were reported in 2012. That annual figure has remained fairly steady in the last 12 years. Since 2000, the number of spills reported in any given year has varied between 31,886 in 2009 and 36,855 in 2006.

If any good can be said to have flowed from Deepwater Hori-zon, it is that new technologies for containing and cleaning up oil spills have come to light, thanks to the call by BP to companies that could help in the cleanup efforts. Of some 140,000 ideas sub-mitted to BP, 15 went through an evaluation process and an even smaller number were actually deployed to the Gulf during the disaster. Two of the companies BP called on to help in the cleanup were C.I.Agent Solutions, a company based in Louisville, Ky., and UltraTech International Inc., headquartered in San Jose, Calif.

“Before the Gulf oil disaster, everyone had been using the same technology for 20 years,” said Mark Shaw, co-president of UltraTech. “BP provided an opportunity for new technologies to be explored.”

C.I.Agent was stationed on Dauphin Island, Ala., beginning on April 26, less than a week after the explosion. Together with the Alabama National Guard, C.I.Agent personnel built a six-mile oil-water separator, a barrier created to allow the use of the company’s blend of polymers that solidifies hydrocarbons into a recyclable rubber-like mass.

“We ended up not using any polymer,” said Dan Parker, C.I.Agent Solutions’ founder and president, “because the oil never reached Dauphin Island. We built the barrier to separate the oil from the water if the oil sheen made its way to the beach.”

The National Response System was set up in 1968 pursuant to the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan (National Contingency Plan, or NCP, for short) to provide planning and organization to efforts to deal with large oil spills. The NRC was set up later, becoming operational in August 1974, for the reporting and coordination of response to pollution by oil and hazardous substances.

The National Response System, a network of individuals and teams from local, state and federal agencies, combine their exper-tise and resources to ensure that oil spill control and cleanup activ-ities are timely, efficient and minimize threats to human health and the environment. The system includes on-scene coordinators (OSCs), a national response team and regional response teams.

OSCs are federal officials responsible for directing response actions and coordinating all other efforts at the scene of a discharge or spill. They also work in partnership with other federal, state, local and private response agencies. OSCs come from the Coast Guard, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Energy or the U.S. Department of Defense, depend-ing on the location and nature of the spill.

The Coast Guard and EPA have the greatest responsibility for responding to oil spill emergencies. “When a spill occurs in coastal waters, the local Coast Guard port commander is the OSC,” said Syed Qadir, the director of the National Response Center. “When a spill occurs in an inland area, such as a spill from a pipeline or rail tank car, a regional EPA official is assigned as the OSC. The OSC is responsible for assessment, monitoring, response assistance and reporting.”

When a spill occurs, the organization responsible for the release or spill is required by law to notify the NRC if the amount of a hazardous substance release or oil spill exceeds the established reporting trigger. “Once a report is made, the NRC immediately notifies an OSC,” said Qadir. “The OSC determines the status of the response by state and local government responders and the com-pany responsible for the release or spill. The OSC also monitors the situation to determine whether, or how much, federal involvement is necessary.”

The NRC itself is composed of representatives from 16 federal agencies. Although located at Coast Guard headquarters, the NRC is not a Coast Guard unit but is considered to be an independent federal government entity. “The costs and operations of the center are supported by these several federal agencies,” said Qadir. Qadir himself happens to be a Coast Guard employee.

“The NRC is strictly a communications and operations center,” said Qadir. “The response is taken care of by the on-scene coordina-tor. We facilitate and coordinate communications with the national response team. The NRC briefs the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and the Secretary of Transportation regard-ing significant transportation emergencies reported to the center. We also provide information to the Coast Guard’s Office of Marine Safety, Security, and Environmental Protection for a variety of reports, studies or Congressional inquiries.”

Both UltraTech International and C.I.Agent Solutions have developed materials that can isolate oil spills and separate oil from water so that the oil can be removed and cleaned up. In addition, UltraTech cultivates and markets specialized microbes which can actually metabolize hydrocarbons.

“We created an oil fencing product that acts like a fence around a construction site,” said Shaw. “During Deepwater, BP deployed this fencing in the water close to the water line so that, as the surf rose and fell, the oil could be captured in the fabric and removed so that it would not reach the beach.” BP bought 30 miles of UltraTech’s oil boom product and placed it along the shore lines of Mississippi and Louisiana.

The booms, made from UltraTech’s Ultra-X-Tex fabric, differs from its predecessors in that it absorbs both oil and water but then


expels the water as it is replaced by oil. “Older fabrics are made with polypropylene absorbents that repel water and then absorb oil,” said Shaw. “The problem with these is that the water gets in the way of the oil. The water can’t pass through the fabric and it gets blown out of the way. Our patented fabric absorbs both oil and water but then selectively retains the oil and lets the water molecules go through.”

Ultra-X-Tex, which has been in use for 10 years for storm water management, was deployed for the first time in connection with an oil spill during the Gulf disaster. The fabric has the capacity to absorb two-thirds of a gallon per square yard. “Once they are satu-rated they can be removed and replaced,” said Shaw. “An industrial wringer can remove 80 percent of the oil out of fabric and it can be reused, or it can be incinerated.”

C.I.Agent’s solidifiers are polymers listed on the EPA NCP product schedule and have been approved for work on oil spills in open waters. “There are certain conditions attached to this,” said Parker. “The spill has to be contained, meaning a boom had to be put out first, it has to be recovered, and it can’t be put on animals.”

C.I.Agent has a partner company in Australia that invented a cannon-like device to disperse the polymers through a water stream. Coast Guards in the Scandinavian and Baltic regions have used this system to contain oil spills there. The water cannon was also used in connection with the Gulf cleanup.

C.I.Agent solidifying polymers works on a full spectrum of hydrocarbons, from gasoline to crude oil.

The polymers solidify and detoxify hydrocarbons upon contact for spill control. Hydrocarbons solidified become non-hazardous and float on the water. “Solidified hydrocarbons can be reused in various industrial applications, for example in asphalt, or burned as fuel,” said Parker.

Once the spill matter has been solidified, responders can use skimmers to clean it up. “We are getting recovery of over 90 per-cent of the material with this process,” said Parker.

Oil spills need to be contained or fenced in before the poly-mers are applied. This job can be accomplished with the C.I.Agent Barrier Boom. The boom allows the unimpeded flow of water but becomes an impervious barrier in the event of an oil release. The barrier boom is constructed from non-woven geo-textiles filled with C.I.Agent granules and backed with Agent-X, a non-woven geo-textile material with C.I.Agent embedded within the fabric.

In addition to the oil-water separator, the company deployed three new products during the Gulf oil spill cleanup and contain-ment efforts. C.I.Agent CLAM (continuous low-level aquatic moni-toring) is a submersible extraction sampler to sequester pesticides, herbicides and other trace organic materials from the water.

C.I.Agent Hydrocarbon Detection Strips determine the pres-ence of hydrocarbons in water. When the strip is introduced into a potential hydrocarbon situation, the light blue strip turns a darker blue if hydrocarbons are present. The color intensity and size of the darker blue areas are indications of the quantity of hydrocar-bons contained in the sample. The third new product used was the water cannon.

UltraTech presented another technology to BP that the latter chose not to test but that Shaw claims can supercharge future oil cleanup efforts. “There was some discussion during the Gulf oil spill saying that 50 percent of the oil may have been eaten by naturally occurring microbes in the ocean,” he said.

UltraTech has a product called UltraMicrobe which is made out of archaea, one of the oldest organisms. “It is the first microbe bioremediation agent on the NCP list,” said Shaw. “Research at Louisiana State University to test the effectiveness of various agents showed that the microbe destroyed 99.6 percent of the hydrocarbons and that the microbe was far better than anything out there.”

UltraMicrobe is specifically cultivated for bioremediation in sea water, crude oil and ammonia. “That is what they grow up on,” said Shaw. “They are trained like Spartan warriors to destroy hydrocar-bons. After they digest the toxic material, it comes out as carbon, hydrogen and a fatty acid, all benign, non-hazardous materials.”

Given the frequency of oil spills, companies like UltraTech and C.I.Agent will have plenty of practice and proofs of concept in case another catastrophic spill like the Deepwater Horizons occurs. Government agencies and private companies also conduct exercises on a regular basis in which these newer technologies are put to the test.

“BP is still stimulating a lot of activity in this area,” said Parker. “They are challenging us and working with us to come up with newer and better technologies.” O




Engines for all Coast Guard vessels are heavily affected by the ongoing advances in emission rules, both in the U.S. and world-wide. These rules tend to tighten most and earliest for larger engines but will eventually affect engines of all sizes.

Engine designers must meet emission rules, but should seek to do much more. Fuel efficiency, reliability, low maintenance cost, size and weight are also important considerations for customers and thus engine makers.

The first requirement of good design is to achieve emission goals without giving up too much in fuel efficiency or other objec-tives. Often, a new design may actually gain along other dimen-sions while it reaches tougher environmental goals.

Much engine design is still in flux. Some future emission requirements are known and design is well along in development. Other requirements, especially for smaller engines, are still not certain, and some design decisions must still be made. Engine makers are thus at different points on the design curve, depending partly on what kinds of engines they manufacture.

Most engine makers tend to be very proud of their products. “We do it better than the next guy,” said Karl Sandstrom, project leader for BRP’s Outboard Engines Division. “Evinrude E-TEC is the cleanest, most efficient and powerful technology available today.”

While many competitive engines are four-stroke, E-TEC out-boards features a direct-injection, two-stroke design that provides a smaller and lighter package. “A lightweight engine is important to the way a boat handles while navigating through varying sea conditions, cruising, running full speed or even coming on or off plane,” Sandstrom said.

Offering a direct-injected, two-stroke design also means E-TEC engines are very powerful at low-end torque because there is one power stroke for every revolution, rather than one for every other revolution as in four-stroke engines. “In fact, E-TEC outboards produce so much low-end torque that you typically can plane a larger twin-engine boat with only one engine, without having to change the propeller,” Sandstrom said. “That kind of power can be important to the Coast Guard when having to operate in heavy seas or when rescuing or towing other vessels.”

E-TEC outboards also feature an advanced two-stage form of direct fuel injection (DFI) that includes both stratified and homo-

geneous combustion. In the stratified mode, an onboard computer instructs the spark plug to ignite the fuel charge immediately as it enters the combustion chamber. This uses only a small portion of the cylinder, effectively allowing the engine to operate like a much smaller engine.

Not available on any four-stroke outboard, stratified combus-tion is featured on all E-TEC engines at slower operating speeds, providing superior fuel efficiency and greater range. “Superior effi-ciency at lower throttle settings is important because based on the ICOMIA [International Council of Marine Industry Associations] duty cycle, the industry standard used by the U.S. EPA [Environ-mental Protection Agency], an average boater operates their engine at idle speed about 40 percent of the time,” Sandstrom noted.

In addition to unsurpassed fuel economy, stratified combustion has the additional benefits of lower emissions and fewer fumes, which can be particularly important when operating at slow speeds or in a following sea. At idle speeds, an E-TEC emits up to 80 times less carbon monoxide than a typical competitor’s four-stroke out-board. “It’s very efficient. The stratified mode makes the combus-tion process and running quality very controlled and very clean,” Sandstrom explained.

If operators have a 300-horsepower engine, they do not need 300 horsepower at idle. But when more power is needed, the E-TEC computer shifts to homogenous combustion, so fuel passes by an unlit spark plug, fills up the entire chamber and is then ignited by the plug. In the homogeneous mode, the engine is free to develop its full power potential.

“All outboard engines are much better than they were 20 or even 10 years ago,” Sandstrom acknowledged. But E-TEC two-stroke engines also yield very low maintenance costs. There is no break-in period. “You do not have to bring it in for a 10- or 20-hour check, and there is no annual service to change the oil, adjust or change belts or adjust the valves like our competitors’ engines.” E-TEC engines only require dealer-scheduled maintenance once every three years or 300 hours, instead of the annual service that most boaters have come to expect. And an E-TEC’s maintenance requirements are minimal, such as changing spark plugs, gear lube, water pump impeller and greasing fittings.

Furthermore, the typical four-stroke engine needs a lengthy period for winterization, best done by a dealer, said Sandstrom.

moRe poweR is Not always tHe aNsweR, But moRe effiCieNt poweR CaN Be.

By HeNRy CaNaday

CGf CoRRespoNdeNt

Cleaner, BetterEngines

Fuel eFFiciency

maintenance cost

cylinder use


“Our winterization is very simple, costs almost nothing and can be done by the user in a matter of minutes.”

The alternators on E-TEC engines also produce substantial electric power. Smaller E-TEC engines generate 25 net amps, and the larger engines produce a full 50 net amps of battery charging power. “At 1,000 RPM, our larger-horsepower engines deliver 30 net amps, and go on to produce a full 50 net amps at as little as 2,000 RPM,” Sandstrom said. “Many competitive offerings peak out at 25 or 30 amps.”

Developing an abundance of amperage at idle speeds means that in virtually any situation, operators have positive amperage to the battery to compensate for the drain of onboard electronics so they are not running the batteries down. “That is important when you operate at low speeds with lots of electronic equipment like the Coast Guard does,” Sandstrom said.

E-TEC technology generates this electrical power using a main-tenance-free, under-the-flywheel magneto system instead of a belt-driven alternator, which means no adjustments and no chance of a belt breaking and needing to be replaced, reducing maintenance worries and costs.

Maintenance costs are further reduced by solid protection against saltwater corrosion. E-TEC uses aluminum that has some of the low-est copper content in the industry and uses electro-deposition painting “to get it into every nook and cranny of aluminum parts,” Sandstrom said. Extensive use of stainless steel with fasteners and major com-ponents helps ensure long engine life, even in the harshest saltwater conditions.

All E-TEC engines are built with the same technology, and Sandstrom said the entire line has more parts commonality than competitive engine lines. “Diagnostics are the same; if you can work on one, you can work on them all.” And all the engines are built in Wisconsin.

New EPA regulations in January 2013 tightened emission requirements in some respect. Beyond 2013, “nothing definitive has been approved,” for the engine sizes BRP makes, Sandstrom said. BRP speculates that the EPA may move toward emission lev-els similar to those now applied to automobiles, and this would require a catalytic converter. “We estimate additional legislation may be implemented somewhere around 2018, and required lev-els may go to 5 grams per kilowatt hour from the current 16 per kWh,” Sandstrom said. “That would require a catalytic converter for both two- and four-stroke engines.” Sandstrom added that “when and if that level of emissions is required, Evinrude E-TEC technology will be ready and will continue to lead the industry in cleaner-running outboard technology.”

In addition to the full line of Evinrude E-TEC outboards, BRP also offers a special line of multi-fuel engines built and engineered to U.S. military specifications. “Our MFE engines are true, multi-fuel engines. They can run on gasoline, JP5, JP8, kerosene and even diesel—in a combat emergency,” said Justin Antolini, BRP’s government sales manager. “These highly advanced and vertatile engines are available in traditional pro-peller and jet pump versions, have been deployed in mulitple


theatres across the globe and offer our military personnel the flexibility of changing from conventional gasoline to heavy fuels at any given time.”

Cummins engine design has been driven chiefly by emis-sion regulations, initially voluntary but increasingly mandatory since the U.S. signed International Maritime Organization (IMO) Annex 6 and the EPA started its Tier 2 rules in 2004, explained Marine Product Planning Manager Eddie Brown. “Today we are going from Tier 2 to Tier 3 and we are in the process of upgrading to meet these requirements,” Brown said.

When redesigning engines to meet new emission rules, Cum-mins also looks at other ways to add value for customers or to respond to any issues raised. And emission rules can pose some tough design problems. “One challenge in meeting emission rules is to keep fuel efficiency up. You also want the engine to be durable, reliable and affordable to service,” Brown noted.

Coast Guard cutters typically have propulsion requirements that are outside Cummins’ current power range. However the company can provide auxiliary power packages to generate emergency or ship power, as it does for the Sentinel-Class fast response cutter with 5.9-liter engines.

For the future, Chief Engineer-Commercial Marine Mike Aufdermauer is looking at how to meet EPA Tier 4 rules, which have been issued for the engine sizes Cummins makes. He said Cummins will meet tougher limits on particulates “in cylin-der”—that is, with changes in fuel injection and piston geome-try, rather than with particulate traps or filters. To meet the limit of 2 grams of nitrogen oxide set for larger engines, Cummins will need selective catalytic reduction (SCR). This limit applies to engines of more than 600 kW capacity and goes into effect at different dates, from 2014 to 2017, for different-sized engines. For engines above 2,000 kW, Tier 4 starts in 2014.

Aufdermauer said Cummins is studying how to meet Tier 4 even as it develops Tier-3 engines. “We have proven our technol-ogy can meet Tier 3 and then we will introduce SCR for Tier 4.” A modified common-rail system for direct-fuel injection will be optimized for both emissions and fuel efficiency. “We are look-ing to gain back some fuel efficiency. That is why we chose SCR technology, to gain back some fuel efficiency.”

Aufdermauer estimates that this approach will reduce the overall cost of ownership by 5 percent, including both fuel con-sumption and urea in diesel exhaust fluids.

Emission rules affect everything engines designer do now. “In the past, you could put a product on the market for years with no change,” the Cummins engineer said. “Now you have to change for emissions and look at durability, reliability and efficiency and take those into account.”

Apart from meeting new emission requirements, Cummins is also working on expanding its power range. The company now makes engines from 6.7 to 60 liters, or 150 to 2,700 horsepower. In 2017 it will introduce a V16 at 95 liters and is also planning on a V12 at 79 liters and a V20 at 120 liters.

“Tognum is currently the leading provider of high speed die-sel engine-based propulsion systems to the U.S. Coast Guard,” said Bernard Bentgen, government and naval sales director, Tognum America Inc. “MTU engines power the recently-commis-sioned Sentinel-class cutter USCGC Bernard C. Webber and the national security cutter USCGC Stratton, and several additional new cutters in each of those classes.”

Tognum’s MTU engines are designed and built with leading-edge technology, such as electronically controlled common rail fuel injection and sequential turbocharging. This technology reduces emissions while improving performance and fuel effi-ciency. The MTU brand is more than 100 years old and has a long legacy of excellence in marine propulsion systems.

Engine designers have long sought the perfect mix of power and efficiency. “MTU engines have featured common-rail fuel injection systems since 1996,” said Bentgen. “This innovative technology has resulted in diesel engines that are more efficient, cleaner and more powerful.”

Tognum America has an extensive network of independent dis-tributors and service providers that provide service and support for all MTU customers. “In addition, the MTU training center in Can-ton, Mich., provides detailed service and maintenance training on all MTU marine engines for Coast Guard personnel,” said Bentgen.

The Coast Guard purchases a broad range of Mercury Marine outboard motors, from 25 horsepower all the way to 300 horse-power, for a variety of operational craft, explained Jeff Krueger, director of sales, service & marketing for racing, commercial and government. The 300-horsepower model is used mostly for home-land security boats and interceptors; 150-horsepower engines pro-pel surface boats, and 25-horsepower engines propel flat-bottom boats.

Krueger said Mercury outboards are available in low-emission, two-stroke models as well as four-stroke electronic fuel injection and four-stroke supercharged models. “We also offer a specialty two-stroke DFI outboard that is capable of running on multiple fuels such as kerosene, commercial Jet A and military JP fuels.”

Krueger said Mercury will continue to engineer outboard and stern-drive products to meet and exceed current and future emis-sion regulations, both domestic and international. “There are a series of steps in putting new emission requirements in place. We intend to stay well ahead of the curve.” The Mercury exec believes his line of engines is distinguished by its performance, advanced technology and reliability. “These are the key factors that keep Mercury Marine ahead of the competition.”

“From a technological standpoint, Caterpillar, along with its peers in the industry, is constantly working to meet the lat-est level of emissions standards imposed both domestically and worldwide,” said Darrell Kuhne, manager, Global Governmental Marine, of Caterpillar Defense & Federal Products. “Currently, we are addressing the Tier 3 and Tier 4 standards.”

Depending on what needs to be done to meet these require-ments, Caterpillar will modify each platform accordingly. “This may involve anything from little or no modification up to the addition of accessories to achieve the desired level of emissions,” Kuhne said. Both requirements and modifications will vary depending on size of engine.

Kuhne said Caterpillar invests hundreds of millions of dollars annually in research and development to enhance its engines and improve cost of ownership. It also looks at global trends and tries to position its product in line with these. O




The sea ice in the Arctic has been melting in the summer at a faster rate than ever before, opening up new sea lanes for cargo, cruise and warships crossing the top of the world.

But with increased traffic comes the increased risk of an accident or emergency and an increased need for icebreakers to smash their way through the walls of ice that still form in the waters of the High North.

Russia, Canada and other countries that border the Arctic have, or are building, new icebreakers, while China, which des-perately wants to find shorter, Arctic sea routes to Western mar-kets, has one icebreaker and is building another.

But the United States has had only one medium icebreaker for the last two years. That is about to change. The 399-foot heavy icebreaker, Coast Guard Heavy Icebreaker Polar Star, is rejoining the Coast Guard fleet this year after $56 million in repairs and upgrades at Vigor Shipyards in Seattle.

“Commercial, shipping and industrial activ-ity is increasing in Arctic waters each year,” said Vigor Industrial Chief Executive Officer Frank Foti, explaining that the Portland, Ore.-based parent of Vigor Shipyards expects increased activity in the Arctic to drive demand for a range of shipbuilding and repair services—including icebreakers.

According to Coast Guard documents, the United States has a vital national interest in maintaining robust polar icebreaking capability to ensure “year-round Coast Guard presence in these important waters.” In submitting its budget request for fiscal year 2013, the Coast Guard noted “the criticality of the Arctic as a strategic national priority, given the increasing presence and interest by other nations, the preponderance of natural resources … and increasing maritime commercial and recreational activity.”

With that growth, Foti said, “the need for additional U.S. icebreak-ers will only grow. Better icebreaking capacity is critical to keeping all those people safe and maintaining the nation’s ability to respond to emergencies.” He added: “That capacity can only come from expanding the American icebreaker fleet.”

The Polar Star (WAGB-10), which can break through ice up to 6 feet thick at a speed of three knots, will be joining the USCGC Healy, a medium, or polar, icebreaker that made headlines last year creating a path through Arctic waters for a Russian fuel tanker bringing heating oil and gasoline to icebound Nome, Alaska. At 420 feet long and dis-placing 16,000 tons, the Healy is considered only a medium icebreaker because it can only crack ice 4.5 feet thick at 3 knots. The Polar Star’s sister ship, the Polar Sea (WAGB-11), which needs extensive engine repair or replacement as well as upgrades, remains in Vigor Shipyards, with its fate still undetermined. Both of the heavy icebreakers were

built by Lockheed Shipbuilding of Seattle in the late 1970s and both are well past their original service lifes-pan of 30 years. Lockheed left the shipbuilding business in the 1980s.

The Coast Guard plans to keep the refurbished Polar Star in service until 2020, but notes that the need for heavy icebreaking capability will continue for the fore-seeable future. The service, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, is now in the preliminary phase of a new, heavy polar icebreaker acquisition project.

“We would like to have two heavy endurance ones and one medium endurance [icebreaker] in the fleet,” Admiral Robert J. Papp Jr., the Coast Guard comman-

dant, said last month at the Surface Navy Association’s 25th annual symposium in Arlington, Va.

For years now, Papp has been making the case for at least one additional heavy icebreaker and government reports and studies—including a 2010 analysis by the Coast Guard—have recommended

On Thin Ice

Frank Foti

CHaNGiNG aRCtiC sea iCe patteRNs,tRaffiC CReate GReateR Need foR iCeBReakeRs.By JoHN m. doyle

CGf CoRRespoNdeNt




expanding the icebreaker fleet for national security, safety, scientific and environmental reasons.

“Although polar ice is diminishing due to climate change, observers generally expect that this development will not eliminate the need for U.S. polar icebreakers and, in some respects, might increase the mission demands for them,” a December 12, 2012 Con-gressional Research Service report on Coast Guard polar icebreaker modernization said.

FISCal YeaR

CoSt CategoRY FY2013 FY2014 totalS

($000S)

2014 design $2,000 $1,000 $3,000

program management $2,000 $2,000

system engineering &

integration$2,000 $2,000

2015 program management $1,000 $1,000

total $6,000 $2,000 $8,000

The Coast Guard is in the process of developing a formal mission need statement, a concept of operations and an operational require-ments document for a detailed acquisition project plan. At least two large shipbuilders in addition to Vigor are interested in building the new heavy icebreaker—depending on what the Coast Guard has in mind and whether it gets the funding from Congress in these times of fiscal restraint.

Michael Carroll, vice president for operations at STX US Marine in Houston, said his company has already had discussions with the U.S. Coast Guard about the Polar Class 2 (heavy) ice breaker STX Marine is building for Canada’s Coast Guard. “They’re interested in our polar class vessel. We’ve done presentations for them, showing our polar class icebreaker.”

Together with its Finnish partner Aker Arctic Technologies—now part of STX Europe who have built or been involved in the design of over 60 per-cent of the world’s icebreakers. And Carroll thinks the market won’t be drying up anytime soon—even with climate change—“until it’s clear that icebreakers are not needed.”

At Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), which now owns the Avondale Industries shipyard that built the Healy, there is definite interest in the next heavy icebreaker.

“The commandant says that’s something they’re going to con-tinue to make an investment in. It’s a unique ship. We have experi-ence in building icebreakers,” said Jim French, manager of HII’s National Security Cutter program, which includes icebreakers.

The Polar Sea and Polar Star were both built back in the 1970s, French noted, but the Healy was built in 1999, “so it’s much more advanced in the technology that went into outfitting it.”

He noted that the Healy, even though it was designed as a medium endurance cutter, could be modified for use as a heavy icebreaker. “What we would do is simply look at what kinds of changes you would have to do to the skantlings [the structural strength of framing and structural supports like girders and I-beams] and everything in order to reinforce the steel for breaking the heavier

ice and, of course, you’d have to have a heavier propulsion system to maintain the speed through the heavier ice. In their prime, both the Polar Sea and Polar Star had more powerful engines than the Healy.”

But that all depends on what the government decides to do, he cautioned. “We will follow the developments as it goes through the Coast Guard and Congress, and if additional monies are funded, then HII would be interested in following that development. And if an RFP [request for proposals] is issued, we would be interested in evaluating that, bidding on it and con-struction,” French said.

In December, President Barack Obama signed into law the Coast Guard authorization bill that bars the decommissioning of the Polar Sea unless the Coast Guard conducts a study showing that scrapping the vessel is the most cost-effective option for developing a larger icebreaker fleet.

“Icebreakers are critical to our national security and America’s interests in the Arctic,” said Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), author of the Polar Sea amendment, adding: “As commerce in the Arctic continues to increase, our nation’s need for icebreakers will continue to grow.”

According to Cantwell’s office, refurbishing a large icebreaking vessel like the Polar Sea can take roughly five years and employ upwards of 300 workers. Building a new vessel can take eight to 10 years, employing more than 1,000 workers. O

Michael Carroll

RFI for Polar Icebreaker Replacement

the Coast Guard’s Polar Icebreaker replacement Project office has issued a request for information as a means of market research for (a) candidate heavy polar icebreaker designs and (B) U.S. shipyards capable of building a heavy polar icebreaker. this rFI is issued as a precursor to a potential polar non-nuclear icebreaker procurement program and to initiate market research in assisting the USCG in developing an acquisition strategy for new construction of a potential non-nuclear heavy icebreakers.

at a minimum, a candidate heavy icebreaker design must be able to perform the missions performed by the USCGC Polar Star. at a continuous speed of 3 knots, the Polar Star can break ice 6 feet thick, and by ramming, can break 21 feet pack ice.

Prospective shipyards and ice breaker design must be based on: Information on candidate designs submitted must be based on: Proven, currently in-service vessels that are capable of being built in the U.S.; In-service vessel designs that are capable of being licensed for building in the U.S.; Variants of in-service vessel designs capable of being licensed in the U.S.; or For new designs or new construction, also include details regarding its current status and expected in-service date.

While the Coast Guard will accept candidate designs from both domestic and international entities, the vessel must be able to be licensed to be built in the U.S.


New National Security Cutter Contracted

Huntington Ingalls Industries has been awarded a $487 million, fixed-price-incentive-fee contract to its Ingalls Shipbuilding division to build the sixth national security cutter, Munro (WMSL 755).

“Our Coast Guard customer continues to be extremely pleased with the performance of the NSC, and this contract proves that,” said Jim French, Ingalls’ NSC program manager. “Our ship-builders continue to execute well on this contract, and the design/build plan is at a mature stage. We currently have two more ships under construction and expect to start NSC 6 in October.”

NSCs, the flagships of the Coast Guard’s cutter fleet, were designed to replace the 378-foot Hamilton-class high-endurance cutters, which entered service during the 1960s. Ingalls has delivered the first three. The fourth, Hamilton (WMSL 753), currently at 40 percent complete, is scheduled to launch this summer and will be christened in October.

Keel-laying for the fifth NSC, James (WMSL 754), is set for May 17. The ship is currently 17 percent complete and will launch in the spring of 2014. A long-lead material contract for Munro was awarded in 2012, and all associated equipment has been ordered.

Ingalls builds, integrates and tests the NSC hull, mechanical and electrical systems, while Lockheed Martin provides the command, control, communicat ions , computers, intelli-gence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities onboard the cutters. [NSC Stratton pictured]

HC-130H Flies with Avionics UpgradeThe Coast Guard recently completed a successful functional check flight

of an HC-130H aircraft enhanced with an advanced avionics upgrade from Rockwell Collins under the Coast Guard’s Avionics 1 Upgrade program.

The flight marked the completion of a significant cockpit and avionics upgrade managed by Rockwell Collins. The upgrade includes incorporation of

four multi-function displays, a new digital autopilot, and a communications, navigation and surveillance/air traffic management (CNS/ATM) equipment suite for compliance with the latest airspace mandates. Rockwell Collins had previ-ously upgraded the Coast Guard’s HC-130H fleet with its new MultiScan hazard detection weather radar.

“Rockwell Collins and the Coast Guard have developed a strong relationship over the years and this most recent successful flight test adds another chapter to that story,” said Troy Brunk, vice president and general manager of airborne solutions for Rockwell Collins. “We’re continuing to add to our track record as the leading provider of cost-effective C-130 avionics upgrades, having completed more than 125 C-130 upgrades worldwide over the last decade.”

The upgrade reduces pilot workload while improving situational awareness through enhanced CNS/ATM flight management capability, incorporating the MultiScan system for aircrew situational awareness, as well as implementing automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast, required navigation performance area navigation functions with digital takeoff and landing data computations, and providing key search and rescue patterns. In particular, aircrews will appre-ciate the fully integrated Class III electronic flight bag with digital map overlays on the cockpit’s new 6-by-8-inch multi-function displays.

Support for Carderock Division Corrosion Teams

Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) has been awarded a prime contract by the United States Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division to provide logistics and program management services for the Navy corro-sion control assistance teams (CCAT). The single-award cost-plus-fixed-fee contract has a one-year base period of performance, two one-year options and a total contract value of approximately $23 million, if all options are exercised.

Under the contract, SAIC will provide logistics and program management services including labor, technical assis-tance, training and process consum-ables for the Navy CCAT. Tasks will also include issuing government-owned tools and process consumables and conducting training.

“We look forward to fulfilling the Navy’s need for technical expertise and introducing new technology onboard U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships and boats,” said JT Grumski, SAIC senior vice president and business unit general manager.


oN tHE HorIZoN

Coast Guard FMS ProgramVSE Corporation’s International Group has been awarded an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity

contract to provide program and technical support services for security assistance projects administered by the U.S. Coast Guard foreign military sales (FMS) Program. This single-award contract has a five-year period of performance (base year plus four one-year options) and a ceiling in excess of $99 million.

Under this contract, VSE’s International Group will provide comprehensive program support, finan-cial analysis, engineering, industrial, technical, logistics and transportation, warehouse and supply, and training support services for the purpose of acquiring, storing, reactivating, repairing, overhauling, refitting, modifying, transporting and transferring ex-USCG cutters, boats and related materials to foreign maritime services.

“We are very pleased to have been selected by Headquarters U.S. Coast Guard to provide support for the maintenance, modification and transfer of USCG maritime assets around the world,” said International Group President Harry Flammang. “From 1999-2007, VSE worked side-by-side with the USCG to successfully transfer cutters and craft and provide follow-on support services. In that time, we successfully transferred 13 USCG cutters and 68 craft.”

Maurice “Mo” Gauthier, chief executive officer of VSE, commented, “The trust the Coast Guard has placed in our ability to perform this complex work reflects across all of VSE and demonstrates the spirit, focus and collaboration we practice every day with our customers. We are extremely proud to be selected for this important Coast Guard program and to further expand our presence in the FMS marketplace.”

Contract Optioned for Additional

HC-144AThe Coast Guard has exercised a contract

option to purchase the service’s 18th HC-144A Ocean Sentry maritime patrol aircraft from prime contractor EADS North America. The HC-144A is based on the Airbus Military CN235 tactical airlifter. More than 230 CN235 aircraft are currently being operated by 29 countries.

“Every HC-144A that enters the fleet expands the service’s ability to meet its increasingly demanding and diverse mission,” said Sean O’Keefe, EADS North America chairman and chief executive officer. “We’re proud to continue to provide such a vital capability.”

The option is part of a contract awarded to EADS North America in July 2010 for three aircraft, plus options for up to six additional aircraft. Under this contract, EADS North America has already delivered three HC-144As—the 12th, 13th and 14th for the service—all on budget and ahead of schedule. The 15th aircraft is due for delivery the first half of 2013, while the 16th and 17th will be delivered in early 2014. The 18th aircraft is planned for delivery by the end of 2014.

The remaining options left on the contract, for up to two additional aircraft, can be exer-cised during 2014. Coast Guard plans call for acquiring a total of 36 HC-144As.

With the ability to remain airborne for more than 10 hours, the Ocean Sentry is performing a wide range of missions for the Coast Guard, including maritime patrol, drug and migrant interdiction, disaster response, and search and rescue. The HC-144A achieved initial opera-tional capability with the Coast Guard in 2008, and today is operational from Coast Guard air stations in Mobile, Ala., Cape Cod, Mass., and Miami.

EADS North America delivers the HC-144A equipped with search radar, electro-optical and infrared cameras, an Automatic Identification System for data collection from vessels at sea, and a communications suite.

The Ocean Sentry’s rear cargo ramp enables easy loading and unloading of the Coast Guard’s palletized mission system. The mission system can be removed for airlift, cargo and medevac missions, freeing up the large cabin for addi-tional transport capacity. The rear ramp can be opened in flight to deploy search-and-rescue equipment.

New Response Boat-Medium

The crew of Coast Guard Station Ponce de Leon Inlet in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., received a brand-new high-tech boat with increased capabilities, enabling faster response times.

The 45-foot Response Boat-Medium (RB-M) is the first of its type at the station and will replace the 47-foot Motor Life Boat (MLB).

With a maximum speed of nearly 49 mph, the new boat is capable of traveling roughly 20 mph faster than the MLB and can go into more shallow areas since its draft is 1 foot less than the older boat.

“The new boat is a great platform for conducting our missions, and with the increase of speed, it will help in our response times and allow us to better serve the Daytona community,” said Master Chief Petty Officer Michael Jensen, officer in charge of Station Ponce de Leon Inlet.

The crew will continue to use the MLB while getting acquainted with the new boat, a process that is expected to take about two months. After the crew is fully qualified, the MLB will be transferred to a Coast Guard station in the northeast.

The new RB-M is one of the Coast Guard’s newest boats and is equipped with state-of-the-art marine technology that makes it a high performer. Its outfit includes an advanced electrical system, water jet propulsion and integrated electronics that allow greater control from the pilothouse. Its increased capability will enable the Coast Guard to respond to offshore missions more effectively.


Compiled by Kmi media Group staff

Admiral Robert J. Papp Jr. assumed the duties of the 24th commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard on May 25, 2010. He leads the largest component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), comprised of 42,000 active duty, 8,200 Reserve, 8,000 civil-ian and 31,000 volunteer auxiliarists.

As a flag officer, Papp served as commander, Coast Guard Atlantic Area, where he was operational commander for all U.S. Coast Guard missions within the eastern half of the world and provided support to the Department of Defense; as the chief of staff of the Coast Guard and commanding officer of Coast Guard Headquarters; as commander, Ninth Coast Guard District, with responsibilities for Coast Guard missions on the Great Lakes and Northern Border; and as director of reserve and training where he was responsible for managing and supporting 13,000 Coast Guard Ready Reservists and all Coast Guard training centers.

Papp has served in six Coast Guard cutters, commanding four of them: Red Beech, Papaw, Forward, and the training barque Eagle. He also served as commander of a task unit during Opera-tion Able Manner off the coast of Haiti in 1994, enforcing United Nations sanctions. Additionally, his task unit augmented U.S. naval forces during Operation Uphold Democracy.

He is a 1975 graduate of the United States Coast Guard Acad-emy. Additionally, he holds a Master of Arts in national security and strategic studies from the United States Naval War College and a Master of Science in management from Salve Regina Col-lege.

Admiral Papp is the 13th Gold Ancient Mariner of the Coast Guard. The Gold Ancient Mariner is an honorary position held by an officer with over 10 years of cumulative sea duty who has held the qualification as a cutterman longer than any other officer.

Q: The Coast Guard has always done what’s been asked. Is the time right to have a conversation about the limits of Coast Guard elasticity in performing its missions with aging assets and with a budget that is, in most opinions, not keeping pace with require-ments?

A: I’ve been engaged in this conversation throughout my tenure as commandant—how do we balance current operations [increas-ing] against the need to build the future?

One of the many challenges the Coast Guard faces today is an aging and obsolete fleet of cutters. As we continue in this difficult fiscal climate, there is a temptation to “hold what you have” at the expense of long-term readiness.

As commandant, my duty is to decide how to strike the right balance between carrying out current operations and ensuring readiness with the need to invest in our future capabilities to meet the demands of the future. I also have a responsibility to advise the Secretary of Homeland Security and Congress, who are part of that decision-making process.

From an operational perspective, the Coast Guard’s most pressing need is to invest in recapitalization of the offshore cutter fleet. Given the condition of our fleet—many older than 45 years—we must continue to recapitalize cutters, boats and aircraft.

Q: Moving forward, are you satisfied with the acquisition pro-cess you have in place and the ability of the Coast Guard to manage the progress, minimize the risks during development and keep programs within budget parameters?

Meeting Current Missions While Preparing for the Future

Requirements Balancer

Admiral Robert J. Papp Jr.Commandant

U.S. Coast Guard

Q&AQ&A


A: Absolutely. We are committed to sound stewardship of the taxpayers’ investment in the Coast Guard. Over the past decade we have built a highly experienced, talented corps of acquisi-tion professionals who are successfully managing complex major acquisitions to recapitalize our cutters, aircraft, boats and shore infrastructure.

Today, they are among the very best in the federal government for a service of our size, and we are increasingly serving as a model for other agencies. I could not be more proud of these dedicated professionals. Where appropriate, we have shifted to fixed-price contracts for most of our major acquisition projects due to the maturation of our acquisition processes and to better allocate pro-grammatic risk between the government and contractor.

We are also concentrating on acquiring state-of-the-market, proven designs and technologies and leveraging work with indus-try, the Navy and other government agencies to seek commonality and interoperability where it makes best sense. The Coast Guard is well aware of the challenges associated with carrying out a com-prehensive recapitalization program in the current and projected fiscal environment. However, the need to recapitalize is more urgent than ever, and I am confident we have the right priorities going forward.

Q: Hurricane Sandy was a devastating storm on land. Tell me about the damage to the aids to navigation systems and your recovery efforts.

A: Coast Guardsmen did a superb job responding to a storm of historic proportions, especially considering that many were vic-tims of the storm themselves. Sandy impacted hundreds of buoys and lighthouses along the mid-Atlantic and New England coasts, including the complete destruction of the Old Orchard Shoal Lighthouse near Staten Island, and rendering the Coast Guard’s aids to navigation base in Bayonne, N.J., nearly inoperable.

Our first priority after the storm—after conducting search and rescue—was to restore the aids to navigation system as part

of a comprehensive plan for recovery of the maritime transporta-tion system. Because most commerce comes by sea and waterway, re-opening ports and waterways to maritime traffic and ensuring safe navigation was essential to restore delivery of fuel and other commodities. Despite these and many other post-storm hardships, aids to navigation teams and buoy tenders from as far away as Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico joined those in New York and New England to ensure all critical aids to navigation in the Ports of New York/New Jersey were watching properly just 48 hours after the storm’s passing. Aids to navigation teams across the East Coast contributed protective gear, hardware and small boats to the massive recovery effort.

Meanwhile, we worked closely with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and others to survey the affected waterways, identify and remove hazards to navigation, and restore the waterways to full commercial operation.

Q: Turning back to Sandy for just a minute. How would you char-acterize the ability of the Coast Guard to communicate with law enforcement, firefighters and other responders during the crisis? Did all of the systems work the way they were supposed to?

A: We suffered a diminished communications capacity due to infrastructure damage. That, combined with persistent power out-ages, made coordination of our wide-ranging efforts difficult. To minimize the impact we deployed Coast Guard Cutter Spencer to New York Harbor to act as a communications hub and relocated some of our units.

For example, after significant damage to their facilities, Coast Guard Station New York relocated their watch and some assets and personnel to the Fire Department of New York’s Marine 9 station. My sincere appreciation goes out to FDNY for being such great shipmates.

Q: Let’s talk ice. Coast Guard Cutter Healy was a good news story as it led the way through the ice for a tanker to deliver much-needed oil to Nome, Alaska. Generally speaking, however, the

recently returning from drydock repairs, the Polar Star continues to power through the ice while awaiting a replacement program to bring a new era of icebreaking to the Coast Guard. [Photo courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard/by Pa3 andy devilbiss]


icebreaking news for the Coast Guard is not so rosy. Tell me what the short-term plan and costs are to enhance your icebreaking capability and what the long-term strategy is?

A: While the story might not be rosy, there’s reason for optimism. I am confident about our current icebreaking capabilities and the future plans to ensure adequate capabilities for U.S. icebreaking needs.

In December, the cutter Polar Star completed a multi-year rehabilitation at Vigor Shipyard in Seattle, is undergoing sea tri-als, and will return to active service this year as the nation’s heavy icebreaker. Polar Star will remain in service for the next seven to 10 years, along with Healy, as we continue work to build the next generation of heavy icebreaker for the nation. Additionally, the president’s FY13 budget calls for funding to begin the design of a new polar icebreaker.

Q: Several months ago the Coast Guard conducted Arctic Shield 2012. What were the major takeaways and lessons learned from the event?

A: For the past several summers, the Coast Guard has forward-deployed resources to Barrow, Alaska, and other sites in the Arctic during periods of increased human activity to ensure maritime safety, security and stewardship in the emerging maritime frontier of the Arctic Ocean.

We continue to see increasing commerce, eco-tourism and oil exploration activity, which bring attendant risks and demand for Coast Guard operations. Due to the oil exploration activity in 2012 in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, we expanded our efforts with Operation Arctic Shield 2012.

This marked the first time the Coast Guard has sustained a multi-mission presence on the North Slope throughout the Arctic maritime season, from July to November. The operation helped to provide insights into four areas of interest as follows: required mission activities for the Coast Guard in the northern

Arctic region; capabilities [personnel, equipment and facilities] necessary to plan, execute and support operations there; available resources to mitigate mission and resource gaps; and preparation of our service and Coast Guard personnel to safely and effectively operate there.

Arctic Shield 2012 successfully overcame the inherent chal-lenges of the lack of physical and communications infrastructure, long-range logistics chains and a severe operating environment for personnel. Arctic Shield 2012 validated our operational proof of concept: the use of the national security cutters as a mobile command and control platform, essentially a floating Coast Guard Sector, operation of seasonal forward operating locations for air facilities, and deployable communications. We also reinforced the importance of partnerships with tribal and state governments, learning from the native peoples who have lived and worked in this remote region for centuries. Lessons learned and the experi-ence gained during Arctic Shield 2012 will be applied to refine and improve Coast Guard Arctic operations and presence for next year and our long-term operations in the region.

Q: Does the requirement to be prepared for oil spills necessitate a working relationship between the Coast Guard, the major oil drillers, cleanup specialists and environmentalists?

A: The Coast Guard is the lead federal agency for directing pol-lution response in the Coastal Zone. Effective execution of that mission requires Coast Guard federal on-scene coordinators to continuously and proactively engage all stakeholders, includ-ing federal, state, local and tribal governments, the oil industry, cleanup specialists and environmentalists at the port level. This is a continuous preparedness process that includes planning, exercise, response and evaluation to ensure readiness nationwide.

During an incident, the Coast Guard leads a unified response. Our role is to ensure all involved are working together toward a common objective, and to maintain close oversight of the respon-sible party to ensure that the interests of the American people

Protecting the shores and inland waterways from national security threats, the Coast Guard also maintains recreational safety on those same waters. [Photo courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard/by Petty officer 3rd Class matthew S. masaschi]


come first. This is a proven process for oil spill preparedness and response.

Q: Any possibility the Coast Guard will consider operating an amphibious aircraft again?

A: We don’t currently have a requirement for amphibious aircraft. The Coast Guard operated amphibious aircraft for many decades, up until we decommissioned our last Sikorsky HH-3F Pelican about 20 years ago.

While amphibious airplanes and helicopters were effective, our other programs developed to the point where there was no need to put the entire aircraft on the water for search and rescue. Deploy-ing from our helicopters, our rescue swimmers—aviation survival technicians—are able to rescue mariners in distress more rapidly and in much rougher conditions.

In addition, our skills in dropping search and rescue equip-ment, such as dewatering pumps, to mariners is much more advanced than it used to be.

Q: When government is looking for novel ways to be more effi-cient and drive operating costs lower, could you ever foresee a scenario by which the Coast Guard would take over maintenance of NOAA aircraft to reduce the maintenance personnel and sup-ply chain for their fleet of about 13 aircraft?

A: We have done some depot-level maintenance for other depart-ments and agencies with similar airframes to create efficiencies through cooperation, but there are currently no plans for the Coast Guard to take over maintenance of NOAA aircraft. Coast Guard maintenance is world class, so it’s understandable our services may be in demand from others. We do a fantastic job of professionally and efficiently maintaining our assets to ensure peak readiness and affordably extend asset lifecycles.

The Coast Guard continues to work very closely with NOAA in other ways to more efficiently serve the public. In January, we

invited NOAA officer candidates to the Coast Guard Academy to train alongside Coast Guard officer candidates. Instilling the his-tory of our close partnership in our future leaders is a vision both services share.

Q: On average, how is the Coast Guard doing on hitting its recruitment and retention numbers? Are the ages spread out in such a way that you will avoid a “graying” of the force and lose too many skills at any one given period due to a large number hitting retirement age at the same time?

A: The Coast Guard is on track to recruit approximately 1,500 people in 2013, which is a low number compared to prior years. We are experiencing record-high retention rates within our mili-tary workforce due to a number of external factors, and the Coast Guard is looking forward to determine the best way to prevent a stagnation in the workforce.

Recruiting is perpetually bringing in new personnel as others leave. This constant flow reduces the potential for a “graying” of the workforce. The Coast Guard is actively working toward further development and employment of additional workforce-shaping tools to properly and effectively manage the enlisted workforce.

Q: Any final thoughts on the men, women and mission of the Coast Guard of 2013?

A: We carry out our missions in a very challenging and, at times, unforgiving environment. Our continued success is only possible because of the great men and women who continue to step forward to serve—and we have the best!

As Coast Guardsmen, we are committed every day to protect-ing those on the sea, protecting America from threats delivered by sea, and protecting the sea itself. Despite the challenges we face, I remain confident and optimistic about the future because of the selfless service of our men and women, and the dedicated support of families. Semper Paratus! O

maritime safety is among the Coast Guard’s many top priority missions. aids to navigation are critically important to safety, commerce and national security. the work is painstaking but absolutely necessary. [Photo courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard]


Off-load marine hooks are found on workboats and military vessels around the world and are used to launch fast rescue craft and other similar small manned boats from the deck of a ship using a davit or other similar launch and recovery system (LARS). These hooks offer operators the split-second release control often needed at sea—including a self-locking feature, which prevents release while under full load.

When all applicable equipment is in perfect working order, the nature of launching a manned small vessel from a larger vessel while at sea is a dangerous task in and of itself, and has resulted in many injuries and fatalities throughout maritime history. If this critical piece of load-bearing equipment is not kept in per-fect working order, it serves to significantly increase the chances of an accident and potential injuries or fatalities during the launch and recovery process.

In January of 2011, Delta T Systems Inc. officially took on the role of the United States agent for Cranston Eagle (DBA Eagle Products Ky), the Finland-based manufacturer of one of the prominent brands of marine off-load hooks. These hooks are used by the United States and Canadian navies and coast guards as well as by many research vessels and offshore platforms around the world.

As the director of the program for the testing and certification of Eagle Products’ hooks, I have noticed an alarming trend develop in the many hooks that I have processed through our facility during my tenure. The first and most disturbing trend is the apparent lack of regard for the five-year testing and recertification cycle—as mandated by the International Maritime Organization. More than half of the hooks that I have seen come through our facility

for testing and recertification are grossly out of date.

Although an out-of-date hook may look fine on the outside, there may be issues that cannot be seen but that may affect the potential performance of this key piece of critical load path safety equipment. Struc-tural issues such as microscopic cracking or hidden wear on locking pins or other critical parts, metallurgical issues such as hydrogen embrittlement, as well as relent-less corrosion issues, each contribute to hidden weakening of the hook. Particularly troublesome are crevice corrosion and pit-ting corrosion, which occur predominantly on portions of the mounting bolts that are hidden from view while the hook is in use and create the potential for catastrophic failure of the hook.

The second most alarming trend that I have noted is improper hook mainte-nance. Top on the list is the use of grease to lubricate the working parts of the hook such as the locking pin mechanism, the positive lock, the latch and the rotating hook part. Grease should never be used on these hooks because of its tendency to col-lect salt and particulate matter and become dry and caked up within the workings of the hook. Many of the hooks that I have seen are gummed up with old grease to the point where they are only marginally func-tional. It is imperative that the locking pin is able to move freely within its confines in order for the hook to maintain the load that it was designed to hold.

Moving down the list of maintenance items, the lock pin spring and the latch spring need to be changed on all Cran-ston Eagle hooks every 30 months as per the manufacturer’s requirements. It is common for me to find tired, worn and deformed springs that have not been changed since the hook was originally

manufactured. A faulty or tired lock pin spring can jeopardize the hook’s ability to maintain the load that it was designed to support if it does not fully push the locking pin into place.

Other maintenance issues include fro-zen or stiffly moving hook parts, sub-stituted sub-par non-OEM parts, highly frayed and improperly tensioned release cables, as well as structural damage to the hook body itself. Although my per-sonal experience is limited to the Cranston Eagle line of marine off-load hooks, it is my understanding that this is an industry trend which spans most of the marine off-load hooks that are in use on today’s vessels.

The solution is quite simply to keep these hooks within certification and to fol-low the correct maintenance procedures as called out by the hook’s manufacturer and the IMO. The first order of business for all vessels that utilize these hooks should be to perform an initial inspection of all hooks within a fleet in order to ensure that they are within their five-year certification date. Once a fleet’s hooks are made safe, then every effort should be made to keep them on the list of critical maintenance items for each vessel.

A call to action would be for the responsible parties for all vessels that uti-lize off-load hooks to inspect their hooks immediately to make sure that they are safe for use and within their five year certi-fication window. The stakes are too high to overlook this critical piece of load-bearing hardware. O

For more information, contact Editor-in-Chief Jeff mcKaughan [email protected]

or search our online archives for related stories at www.cgf-kmi.com.

maiNteNaNCe aNd CeRtifiCatioN of CRitiCal paRts aRe key to tHe safety of life at sea.By miCHael GaBRiel

Precautionis Key


The U.S. Coast Guard is charged with protecting the homeland and ensuring the security of our harbors, ports and waterways. But homeland defense does not begin at the border. It begins far from home. Ensuring secure port operations and vessel movements at home begins not at the harbor entrance, but at distant overseas ports of embarkation, and includes a sophisticated network of sys-tems to track vessel movements at all times, watchful for aberrant behavior abroad that may become a problem in our own waters.

According to Commandant of the Coast Guard Admiral Robert Papp, “The U.S. mari-time transportation system is comprised of 361 ports and thousands of miles of maritime thoroughfares that support 95 percent of U.S. foreign trade. Most of that trade is trans-ported on over 7,500 vessels that make more than 60,000 visits to U.S. ports annually.”

“The entrances to our ports are wherever the market begins. We have people stationed around the world as part of that existential metaphor,” said commander, Atlantic Area/commander, Defense Force East, Vice Admi-ral Robert Parker, USCG.

He said that homeland security starts far from home. “People hear ‘Coast Guard’ and wonder why we’re not on the coast. We are much further forward than that.”

The Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002 mandates the USCG to assess anti-terrorism measures in foreign ports. The 1974 International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea has been amended to include new special measures to enhance maritime safety. This included the International Ship and Port Facilities Security (ISPS) Code, a framework for stakeholders to assess and

manage risk regarding potential threats and the vulnerability of ships and port infrastruc-ture. Today, the Coast Guard is conducting port security assessments at ports all around the world.

To ensure a ship arriving at a U.S. port is safe and secure, it is important to know that the factory where the container was loaded, or the port where the ship departed, is certified as in accordance with the highest standards. The Coast Guard’s goal is to detect, deter and defeat threats as early and distant from U.S. interests as possible. That’s why the U.S. works closely with other nations to help deliver a mutually advantageous layered security framework of MDA.

On one end of the spectrum is the ship-ment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Balhaf LNG terminal in Yemen to Boston, Mass. This is example of an end-to-end secu-rity protocol that ensures vessels and crew are inspected, reliable and have not been compromised in any way, and the ship is monitored for every nautical mile of the tran-sit and escorted into port. This is not possible for every international shipment by sea that arrives in the U.S.

So how can we ensure the safety and security of ship movements? Obviously there are many international partners involved. The ports of departure abroad must be in compliance with the International Maritime Organization’s ISPS Code. The Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002 requires the Coast Guard to assess the anti-terrorism measures of foreign ports involved in U.S. trade, and the Coast Guard’s International Port Security Program conducts periodic visits to ports in about 150 countries to assess

compliance and verify that the ports have effective anti-terrorism measures in place.

Parker said the three U.S. sea services have an important partnership, and he lauded the Coast Guard, Navy and Marine Corps men and women who work together every day around the world. Parker also stressed the importance of relationships. Coast Guard law enforcement detachments can embark on a variety of vessels to exercise their authority within U.S. jurisdiction, and work with other coast guards to help them do their jobs. “Canada is our closest partner. We don’t refer to our ‘northern border,’ we call it our ‘shared border,’” Parker said.

Parker said the combatant commanders around the world want Coast Guard forces. “There is always a significant demand signal for what we do. It’s not just about capability and capacity; it’s about authorities and juris-diction.”

Rear Admiral Paul Zukunft, assistant commandant for Marine Safety, Security, and Stewardship, agreed with Parker about the Coast Guard’s forward posture for maritime security. “Transnational crime is agnostic to boarders,” he said. “We have trade with 160 nations around the globe. Layered maritime security starts in foreign ports. Maritime security doesn’t start when a ship comes under the Golden Gate Bridge.”

Knowing the local traffic conditions is important. The Coast Guard uses the Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) in a number of U.S. ports, such as the busy Sabine-Neches Water-way that runs between Louisiana and Texas and serves the ports of Port Arthur, Beau-mont, and Orange, Texas. VTS informs the Coast Guard and all the stakeholders on the

maRitime domaiN awaReNess RequiRes eNd-to-eNd viGilaNCe.By Ned luNdquist

Maritime Domain Awareness




waterway where traffic is and what it’s doing, enhancing both safety and security.

HaRBoR pRoteCtioN

Another recent example of Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation’s [CMRE] progress in the field of maritime security was the Harbor Protection Table-Top Exercise (HPT2E) hosted at the Cen-tre’s OpenSea Tactical Theatre Simulator, and sponsored by NATO’s Emerging Security Challenges Division Defense Against Terror-ism program.

According to CMRE scientist Ron Kessel, “HPT2E focused on the protection of military forces, seaborne shipments, and critical civil-ian infrastructure in ports and harbors dur-ing times of high threat alert.”

HPT2E was an attacker versus defender “gaming event” designed to help NATO navies and coast guards better prepare for poten-tial threats. It used gaming technology to improve advanced concepts of use for emerg-ing non-lethal response technologies against non-cooperative small boats and underwater intruders. Participants used computer mod-els of emerging non-lethal technologies in realistic scenarios for determining if unau-thorized persons on the waterside in ports (attackers or misguided innocent persons) had hostile intent, justifying the escalation of force when it is required (attackers only).

“Much of security is about risk reduc-tion. In this case, using non-lethal response measures to reduce the risk to innocent persons by winning their speedy compliance in a security zone,” Kessel said, “in this way making a clear distinction between persons with benign or hostile intent, and justifying the use of force against non-compliant people when it is required.”

“HPT2E is a significant advance in tacti-cal gaming and it is the first time that serious gaming is being used in the ‘Defense against Terrorism’ program,” Kessel said. “People get interested and focused on the scenario and the mission, learning about the emerging technologies, and controlling their platforms and sensors and effectors for force protection. We’ve demonstrated the role that serious gaming can play in the capability-develop-ment process.”

vessel tRaCkiNG seRviCe

“We monitor, inform, recommend and direct the traffic on the water, and we con-tribute to maritime domain awareness and

maritime security compliance,” said Mike Measells, the Coast Guard’s civilian direc-tor of VTS on the waterway. “VTS’s task is to promote marine safety and security on the waterway and to minimize and mitigate waterway disruptions—whether the disrup-tions occur from navigation safety incidents or other threats.”

VTS uses AIS data and other informa-tion to identify and track all vessels coming and going in the port and adjoining water way. AIS transponders—required on all ships above 300 tons—transmit position, speed and course, vessel’s name, dimensions and voyage details. VTS also uses surveillance radars and cameras to provide a complete picture.

VTS accomplishes the Coast Guard’s safety mission by communicating and coordinating with vessels, providing useful navigation information, advising of channel obstructions, de-conflicting traffic, and pro-moting good order and predictability.

sHaRiNG data

Achieving MDA requires sharing data in a transparent manner between stakeholders. The automated information system, or AIS, is a maritime version of the identification friend or foe systems used to track aircraft move-ments. AIS is now required on all vessels 300 tons and greater. The AIS transponder provides information about the ship, course, speed and destination. The transponder can be queried by other ships, satellites or land-based transceivers.

While the NATO center for CMRE in La Spezia, Italy, is known for its research in undersea warfare, it is now applying its expertise to address challenges with a broader maritime charter.

Karna Bryan, who leads the Maritime Situational Awareness Project at CMRE, said situational awareness involves using all avail-able data sources and tools to gain a greater understanding of the maritime environment. “Enhanced situational awareness uses a num-ber of different application areas at the same time, including the use of appropriate sen-sors; gathering and sharing data; and finding ways for people to collaborate,” said Bryan.

“Our focus is to develop and take full advantage of science and technology and our expertise in this domain, then demonstrate how new concepts and equipment performs in the operational maritime environment,” said CMRE Director Dr. Dirk Tielbuerger.

Bryan’s career at CMRE has focused on developing warfare tactical decision aids. Her

team is currently looking at multi-sensor data fusion from a number of different mari-time data sources. “Although AIS data pro-vides only a subset of cooperatively reporting maritime traffic and thus needs to be verified with other sources, it is nonetheless a rich source of information about maritime traf-fic,” Bryan said. “Satellite-based AIS is really changing things because it gives us a whole new source of unclassified and more easily sharable data. We’ve been working with the U.S. Coast Guard on a satellite-based AIS feeds from multiple satellite providers. We’re using ‘Bayesian’ techniques based on the data from multiple sensors, so multiple satellites can be collectively analyzed to better under-stand the performance of each of the satellites individually. We’re also looking at automated data-driven techniques to extract maritime routes which help people to identify anoma-lous shipping activity working towards the goal of finding the needle in the haystack.”

According to Bryan, the CMRE approach utilizes AIS data, historical or real-time, and is aimed at incrementally learning motion patterns without any specific a priori contex-tual description. The maritime traffic repre-sentation underpins low likelihood behavior detection and supports enhanced maritime situational awareness by providing a charac-terization of vessel traffic. Bryan said mari-time motion patterns can be “learned” using unsupervised algorithms and is suitable to historic or real time analysis.

“We have a framework we’re developing called CoMSSoFT—which is Collaborative Multi-Sensor Source Fusion and Track-ing Tool—which aims to provide common standards for data fusion within a network-enabled capability. The idea is to implement ‘fusion on demand,’ providing the ability to combine multiple data sources in an ad-hoc manner from multiple data providers.

But data sharing with sophisticated net-works can be vulnerable. Dr. Brett A. Sover-eign, a professor at the Coast Guard Academy, an expert on cybersecurity and information assurance. “Sharing technical information is important, but we must ensure the network will not be compromised.” O

Captain Edward Lundquist, U.S. Navy (Ret.), is a science writer for MCR Federal LLC in Arlington, Va.


Ongoing improvements in technology are making it much easier than it used to be for the U.S. Coast Guard to locate smaller targets in open water. From enhanced imag-ing and radar technologies to unmanned aircraft and aerostats, several new solutions are available to assist in tracking everything from drug runners to boats in distress.

Lieutenant Commander Jeffrey B. Dor-wart, the U.S. Coast Guard’s avionics, sen-sors and C4ISR program manager, said the Coast Guard, which leverages radar, the AIS (automatic identification system) and EO/IR (electro-optical/infrared) turrets to detect such targets, faces unique challenges both in detecting small targets and in maintaining track.

Environmental condi-tions, Dorwart noted, can affect the performance of both radar and EO/IR. “The performance of the IR portion is directly related to the tem-perature differential between the target and the water col-umn the target is in,” he said. “This means there is a lot of variation between detection performance day to day and in different geographies.”

Most importantly, Dorwart said, while the image quality of the Coast Guard’s cur-rent EO/IR turrets is acceptable, it isn’t close to state of the market due to budget constraints. “This negatively impacts our ability to identify items in the image that may be useful knowledge to our boarding teams such as weapons or sensors and anten-nas,” he said. “It also impedes our ability to positively identify small targets due to inad-equate resolution.”

In testimony before the U.S. Congress last May, Coast Guard then-Deputy Commandant for Mission Support Vice Admiral John Currier (now vice commandant) explained, “The Coast Guard’s ability to save lives, interdict drug and alien smugglers, and protect our ports, waterways and natural resources depends on providing our highly trained people with a modern, reliable fleet of vessels and aircraft, equipped with effective command, control and communications systems.”

360-deGRee iNfRaRed imaGiNG

One company that’s offering a solution specifically designed to meet the challenges of tracking in open water is HGH Infrared

Systems, which manufactures the 360-degree Spynel-C infra-red imaging system. “Opera-tionally, we like to describe ourselves most comparably to what radar is trying to do by continuously rotating around and looking for threats in the field of view … and along with that comes the thermal imag-ing component,” said HGH sales manager Joshua Howlett.

“We produce a very high-resolution image of 12 megapixels … and then we can zoom into sectors of that image individually and simultaneously in as many directions as we want, essentially creating a solution that mimics multiple cameras—as many cameras as you could imagine—looking in every direction at once,” Howlett explained.

The system, Howlett said, is able to detect a human at 3 kilometers on land or 1 kilometer in water. “We can detect a small waterborne threat—a RIB or a wooden boat, something radar doesn’t normally have much

success picking up—at 5 to 6 kilometers,” he said. “And then a larger ship class—a com-mercial ship, naval frigate—we can detect that size threat at 12 kilometers.”

And Howlett said the system’s benefits in a maritime environment are clear. “Our most valuable position within the maritime world, especially within Coast Guard or Navy opera-tions, is for anti-piracy missions—picking up things that radar has a hard time doing, and de-cluttering an environment,” he said. “In an ocean, with waves and water moving around in the environment, sometimes radar has a hard time defeating that and figuring out what is actually a real target, especially the small threats in a pirate-type mission, and we’re more effective there.”

The company soon plans to release its Spynel-S, Howlett said, which will offer a significant increase in performance levels. “Instead of a 12-megapixel image, we’ll be creating a 30-plus megapixel image,” he said. “Our detection ranges are going to close to double, so more in the 5- to 6-kilometer range for a human on land, 10 kilometers for a small, asymmetrical threat, and then 15, 20, 25 kilo-meters for a larger vessel.”

tHe RiGHt RadaR teCHNoloGy

Steve Marlow, vice president for surveil-lance radar campaigns at Selex ES, said the right radar technology can also be extremely effective in a marine environment. While traditional mechanically scanned (M-Scan) radar often has trouble with high sea states, Selex’s electronically scanned (E-Scan) radar can solve that problem by revisiting the same cell many times during a single dwell.

“The extremely fast revisit rate synthesized by the E-Scan radar enables advanced ‘sub-clutter’ detection processing, meaning that the target return can be more easily discriminated

tHe teCHNoloGiCal eyes aNd eaRs of tHe Coast GuaRd.By Jeff GoldmaN, CGf CoRRespoNdeNt

Coast Guard C4ISRTechnologies

Josh Howlett


from the spiky sea clutter returns,” Marlow said. “The result is a far superior small target detection capability against a sea clutter background—the benefit is equivalent to a tenfold increase in sensitivity compared with a traditional M-Scan radar—and it results in a very clean display with strong returns from even the smallest of targets.”

Marlow said Selex’s E-Scan radars are also much more reliable than older M-Scan radars. “Whereas traditional M-Scan radars have achieved mean time between failures [MTBF] measured in the 100 to 200 hours range, E-Scan radars, with their radically dif-ferent federated, low-power, solid-state trans-mitters mounted at the antenna face, deliver MTBFs around the 2,000 hour mark,” he said. “[In addition to] aligning much more closely with the Coast Guard’s life-saving ethos, this also has a very positive effect on the support costs of the system, and therefore signifi-cantly reduces the through life cost to the taxpayer.”

Selex ES offers a range of three E-Scan surveillance radars: the Seaspray 5000E, 7000E and 7500E. The three systems share the same modular E-Scan technol-ogy and the same process-ing unit, with different-sized arrays offering a variety of performance lev-els. “These systems have been very widely adopted, since their introduction in 2005, on fixed and rotary wing aircraft, unmanned air systems and aerostats—including the U.S. Coast Guard on their HC-130H fleet and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency on their multi-role enforcement aircraft,” Marlow said.

The U.S. Coast Guard’s deployment of the Seaspray 7500E on its HC-130H fleet has already saved several lives. As just one of many examples, Marlow recalls that in Sep-tember 2008, the Coast Guard successfully located three people on an overturned 15-foot boat in choppy waters 47 nautical miles northwest of Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. “Using the Selex ES radar system, the HC-130H aircrew located the capsized boat at 2:36 p.m. local time and vectored a Coast Guard HH65C Dolphin helicopter from Air Station Borinquen to the scene,” Marlow said. “The aircrew was also able to locate a Good Samaritan vessel, the cruise ship Carnival Destiny, in the area and identify it using the Automatic Identification System integrated with the Selex ES radar.”

tHe BiG piCtuRe deliveRiNG aCtioNaBle iNfoRmatioN

Esri has been deeply involved with the USCG for over 10 years. “ArcGIS is the exclu-sive choice for GIS across the USCG,” said Mike Mastracci, Esri account manager, U.S. Navy and Coast Guard. “The USCG has suc-cessfully implemented an enterprise-level GIS using ArcGIS, known as the EGIS, that pro-vides GIS data and geoprocessing services, as well as providing a portal into services pub-lished by other organizations such as NOAA and the Navy. The Coast Guard is also looking at integrating the EGIS into its other enter-prise systems, to support functions such as asset and infrastructure management.”

The ArcGIS platform is designed to pro-vide an open architecture with a rich appli-

cation programmer interface and complete set of software developer kits (SDKs), all of which are OGC compliant. An SDK is available for every level of the GIS enterprise, from servers to desktop applica-tions to mobile devices. “This enabled the USCG to specify that any new map-based sys-tem or application being built must be developed using Arc-GIS,” said Mastracci. “Legacy

C2 systems are being migrated to take advan-tage of the robust and embeddable GIS toolset available in ArcGIS, but there are significant challenges because many of these systems were not built to be OGC compliant or to share GIS data through indus-try standard interfaces.”

The real value of any sys-tem is not only how much information it provides but how easily that information can be accessed and utilized by those at the very end at the tac-tical level, for example during a search and rescue (SAR) mis-sion. Many SAR cases begin with a phone call about an overdue vessel or a mishap at sea, but many others along the coast of the U.S. begin with a broken or unclear mayday call from the vessel’s radio. These radio calls are intercepted and analyzed by the Rescue-21 communications system, which uses ArcGIS for its geographic calculations to determine the position of the radio call. This last known position is then passed on to the Search and Rescue Optimal Planning System (SAROPS),

a comprehensive search and rescue (SAR) planning system built on ArcGIS which is used in the planning and execution of almost all SAR cases in and around the United States and the Caribbean. The SAR controller, using SAROPS, then develops a search area based upon the information, estimates resource availability and capability, promulgates the search plan and deploys the resources. While the assets are conducting a search, the SAR controller begins the process again by gath-ering additional information, developing a subsequent search, deploying resources and evaluating previous searches. This process continues until the victims are found or the search is reluctantly abandoned.

“SAROPS provides a tool that is fast, sim-ple, minimizes data entry and potential for calculation error, can access high-resolution GIS and environmental data, and can create optimal search action plans that maximize the probability of success,” explained Mastracci. “SAROPS is used to prosecute hundreds of SAR cases every year, and was also utilized in the response to the Deepwater Horizon explosion.”

tHe BeNefits of uNmaNNed aiRCRaft

While the Coast Guard is currently using the Seaspray 7500E on its HC-130H manned aircraft, the system can also be deployed on unmanned aircraft—in May 2012, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) offered a live flight demonstration of its Preda-tor B unmanned aircraft system fitted with a

Selex Seaspray 7500E surveil-lance radar.

GA-ASI’s “Guardian” is the maritime variant of the Preda-tor B, and GA-ASI director of strategic development Scott Dann said its cost-effectiveness is unmatched. “The manned operations, like the P-3 or the upcoming P-8 … are tre-mendously expensive aircraft, numbering up to hundreds of millions of dollars per copy,

and they’re man-intensive,” Dann said. “We have a Guardian aircraft for roughly $10 mil-lion that’s unmanned and can fly out over the ocean and essentially do the same mission.”

The fact that the Guardian aircraft is unmanned, Dann said, offers several key ben-efits. “Just due to the nature of the fact that we’re remotely piloted, we have data links that connect us to the aircraft—and you’re

Steve Marlow

Scott Dann




automatically on the network, so you get dis-tribution of data anywhere worldwide once it’s down from the aircraft,” he said. “You’ve got that connectivity built into the system, so you can process, exploit and disseminate informa-tion to multiple sites anywhere in the world.”

A single Guardian, Dann said, can scan a wide area to locate a vessel, then fly to the tar-get and assess it more closely as needed. “You have situational awareness of exactly what’s happening,” he said. “You can see people on board, you can read the name of the ship and the numbers on the ship, you can determine the status of what’s happening on the ship, and then you can stay on station long enough until they bring a manned aircraft or a boat out, which could take many, many hours. Cur-rently, manned aircraft only have an endur-ance of up to about four to eight hours on station depending on the range, so a lot of times when they get on station with manned aircraft, they have to leave.”

ideNtifyiNG taRGets at NiGHt

Dann said the Guardian can also beam live video to the team that’s actually doing the interdiction. “They’re actually able to see exactly what’s [happening] on the ship—are they gunning up, or are they leaving, or is everything normal—and that saves lives,” Dann said. “We’re also able to shine down laser illuminators if it’s nighttime… so if our interdiction agents are carrying night vision goggles, they see like it’s daytime, and the people that are being interdicted have no idea that they’re in a big spotlight.”

One leading supplier of the night vision technology that’s crucial for those types of missions is ITT Exelis. “Our products are equipped with Generation 3 image intensi-fier tubes that provide the clearest, sharpest image, therefore making it easier for the user to identify specific targets in the night,” said David Smith, vice president and general manager of Exelis night vision business area. “It also improves clarity and resolution, and allows for a more seamless transition when switching from low-light to high-light areas.”

The company also offers sensor fusion night vision technology, a combination of image intensification and thermal infrared technology in a single compact goggle. “Our enhanced night vision goggle, or ENVG, has allowed operators to improve their situational awareness by allowing them to identify heat signatures of objects in the distance and then identify targets with the image intensifica-tion,” Smith said. “The combination of these

two night-vision technologies provides users with greater situational awareness during a challenging mission environment.”

And in October 2011, Smith said, Exelis added a new line of products called i-Aware. “Our i-Aware technology is a game-changing technology for militaries and law enforce-ment agencies that operate at night,” he said. “I-Aware goggles maximize the user’s situ-ational awareness by importing and exporting real-time video, photos, tactical intelligence from a command center, UAV or ally in the field. I-Aware NVGs are the ultimate solution for force protection, mission execution and information sharing across the battlefield.”

miNimiziNG ClutteR, impRoviNG CoNtRast

Paul Jennison, vice president of sales and new business development at L-3 Wescam, said the key challenges in tracking smaller tar-gets in open water come down to the clutter and poor contrast caused by the surface of the water—but he said those challenges can actually be overcome in a rela-tively straightforward manner.

“Target contrast is signifi-cantly improved by switch-ing to the thermal sensor as watercraft are generally warmer than the surrounding water,” Jennison said. “Image contrast is helped by image processing algorithms that work to sharpen the image and enhance contrast. Finally, image blending, which is the overlay of images from the thermal and color sensors, can be used to gain the ben-efit of both the thermal and color sensors in a single image stream.”

For airborne surveillance and reconnaissance, Jennison said, L-3 Wescam’s MX-10, MX-15, MX-20 and MX-25 surveillance turrets boast high defini-tion imaging sensors with exceptional visual range performance. “The ability to detect, recognize and identify targets from longer standoff distances relative to our competitors directly translates to reduced operating costs for our customers,” he said.

The company’s MX-GEO software suite also provides accurate geo-referencing for all imagery. “This helps target detection and tracking software applications distinguish

persistent target features from temporary false alarms,” Jennison said. “Interruption and resumption of scan patterns to view potential targets at high magnification is also more efficient.”

leveRaGiNG tetHeRed aeRostats

Finally, in addition to both manned and unmanned aircraft, tethered aerostats offer another platform from which to perform sur-veillance over a wide area, including in open water. Craig Laws, U.S. Navy program man-ager at Raven Aerostar, said his company’s aerostats help to sidestep many of the visibility issues caused by waves in high sea states. “An aerostat is particularly useful if targets are shielded by swells,” he said. “We can adjust the altitude of the aerostat to compensate, to see over those swells and improve the range. In addition, the radar our subsidiary company, Vista Research, has optimized for the aerostat is very well-suited for that application: We are

constantly making improve-ments in its detect rate and range.”

Most importantly, Laws said, aerostats are unmatched in their persistence. “We can fly for weeks at a time, moor-ing periodically for helium top-offs, sending them right back up. Really, the only time you would need to bring one down is for a helium top-off, to do maintenance on a sensor or for severe weather,” he said.

Laws said it’s important to keep in mind that aero-stats aren’t limited to land-based deployments; they can be a perfect fit for a marine environment. “You can take the systems to sea—you really just need a deck, or a place to launch the aerostat. We had an application with a research

team that utilized aerostats to monitor water and weather data. The aerostats were placed out in the Indian Ocean and left unattended for weeks at a time,” he said. “The operators would periodically go out on a boat, pull them down, replace batteries, and put them right back up.” O

David Smith

Craig Laws


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William (Bill) E. SkinnerChief Executive Officer

VT Halter Marine Shipyard

Bill Skinner has over 40 years of expe-rience in the shipbuilding industry. He has been with VT Halter Marine Inc. since October 2002, serving as COO from 2005-2009 and now as the company’s CEO. Skinner holds a Bachelor of Science in management from the University of Mobile and is a member of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, the American Bureau of Shipping, the Ameri-can Welding Society, and the Propeller Club of the United States.

Q: Can you tell us about VT Halter Marine?

A: VT Halter Marine is a mid-tier shipyard with about 2,100 employees that has been building ships along the Gulf Coast for over 50 years. In fact, the roots of the company can be traced back to Higgins Industries who built the famous Higgins boats of WWII. That proud commitment to deliv-ering quality products that meet mission requirements has endured as a hallmark of the company.

Today, VT Halter Marine is actually comprised of three shipyards located in Pas-cagoula, Moss Point, and Escatawpa, Miss.

Q: What types of vessels do you build?

A: At VT Halter Marine, we can build just about anything—from 112-foot offshore articulated tug barges for New York-based Bouchard Transportation Co. Inc. to 700-foot RO-RO car carriers for Pasha Hawaii.

We do a lot of work with the U.S. Navy. In March, we launched a new 253-foot Navy T-AGS 66 oceanographic research vessel. We are also building four fast missile craft [FMC], also known as the Ambassador IV, for the Egyptian Navy under a U.S. Navy foreign military sale. Although it is only 210 feet long, the FMC can make 34-plus knots and is equipped with potent offensive and defensive weapons systems.

Q: Tell us about your decision to bid on the U.S. Coast Guard’s offshore patrol craft [OPC].

A: Our bid/no-bid decision was based on our strong belief that we could deliver a winning OPC design that would meet the operational needs of the Coast Guard now and in the future. We teamed with the premier French ship designer DCNS.

We also brought in a team of Coast Guard subject matter experts to help us refine the design. We understand how important these ships are to the Coast Guard’s recapitaliza-tion effort. The Coast Guard badly needs to replace the aging medium endurance cut-ters with new, multi-mission ships that are modern, capable and built to ABS standards for safety, survivability and crew habitability. Our OPC concept design is all of that and more.

Q: I understand that you bid on the U.S. Coast Guard’s fast response craft [FRC].

A: Yes. We put forward an excellent design, but we weren’t selected. Still, it was good experience for us.

By participating in the bid process for the FRC, we learned a lot about the current and future needs of the Coast Guard. We also learned about the Coast Guard’s acquisition process. All of those insights were applied to our design effort for the OPC.

Q: What distinguishes VT Halter Marine from its competitors?

A: That’s easy; it’s our people, our knowhow, and our superior equipment and processes.

VT Halter Marine builds high-quality marine vessels at affordable prices. That’s what we do. Our location in the southeast-ern United States affords us an abundance of skilled labor at competitive rates.

We have coupled that experienced workforce with state-of-the-art automated equipment. We have a covered facility for fabrication, and we are undergoing a sig-nificant shipyard expansion project at the Pascagoula facility.

In addition, a few years ago we imple-mented a very successful quality assurance program. These various improvements have allowed us to enhance the quality of our products while improving overall cost containment.

Finally, we are a mid-tier yard, which gives us a competitive advantage over the larger yards. Our size allows us to be nim-ble enough to tackle a variety of contracts while remaining extremely competitive on price. I like working at a mid-tier yard.

We are a tightknit group. We look out for each other, and our people take tremendous pride in delivering a quality product.

Q: Are you concerned about the current federal budget situation?

A: I think any CEO of a company that does business with the U.S. government needs to be aware of the budget environment in Washington, D.C. Luckily, we have a fairly diversified portfolio, so that helps.

But, I can certainly appreciate the federal government’s want to get the most bang for their buck. That has always been the case, but it is magnified by the current budget situation. I think that is one of the reasons why firm fixed price contracts are so attractive these days. At VT Halter Marine, almost every job we bid is fixed price. We are very comfortable with operating on a fixed price structure. So, besides producing quality ships, we see ourselves as a safe bet for the federal government and a terrific value for the American taxpayer. O

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