Bollinger to build six cutters

NEW ORLEANS -- Lockport-based Bollinger Shipyards Inc. will receive $250 million to build six Fast Response Cutters for the Coast Guard. That's according to Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. Chair of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, she said funding was included in the FY 2012 federal spending bill. The six boats will be homeported in San Juan, Puerto Rico. (Source: New Orleans Times-Picayune, 09/21/12)

Navy boat surprises residents

MARY ESTHER, Fla. -- Unidentified boats that worried some residents along the Santa Rosa Sound in Northwest Florida were part of a training exercise from a Navy team based at Stennis Space Center, Miss. The gunfire they heard? Blanks. The exercise was part of a training course run by the Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School (NAVSCIATTS). Students were learning how to operate patrol craft for counterterrorism and counternarcotics operations. Authorities received calls about loud booms and gunshots Tuesday evening. (Source: Northwest Florida Daily News, 09/20/12)

Eglin's "narco sub"

A surrogate semi-submersible engineered to mimic the design of drug-running vessels is helping the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate develop better devices to detect them. Called "Pluto," it's homeported at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., and being kept operational by the 46th Test Squadron. The vessels are popularly called "narco subs," build by South American drug cartels. They are actually low-riders, barely visible on the surface of the ocean. The Coast Guard, Navy, Air Force and other federal agencies are using Pluto to test remote sensing capabilities on the 45-foot long vessel in the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic and Pacific. (Source: Department of Homeland Security, 09/16/12) Eglin is best known as the base where the Air Force develops and tests aerial weapons, and more recently as home of the F-35 training center.

Contract: Ingalls, $83.3M

Huntington Ingalls Inc., Pascagoula, Miss., is being awarded a cost-plus award fee contract for CG 47-class cruisers and DD 963-class destroyers Integrated Planning Yard Services. The base year of the contract has an estimated value of $83,271,169, of which $1,000 is being obligated at contract award. This contract includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $468,155,000. Work will be done in Pascagoula, and is expected to be completed by August 2013. Contract funds in the amount of $1,000 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Incremental funding will be provided by the administering activity. This contract was not competitively procured pursuant to FAR 6.302-1, only one responsible source. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity. (Source: DoD, 09/14/12)

Contract: Northrop Grumman, $18.8M

Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., Bethpage, N.Y., is being awarded an $18,820,793 modification to previously awarded contract to provide engineering and production planning services for mission packages that will deploy from and integrate with the Littoral Combat Ship. Mission package capabilities are currently focused on primary mission areas of mine warfare emphasizing mine countermeasures, littoral anti-submarine warfare, and littoral surface warfare operations, including prosecution of small boats. Twenty percent of the work will be done in Panama City, Fla. Other work locations are Bethpage (45 percent); Washington, DC (20 percent); Ventura County, Calif. (10 percent); and Dahlgren, Va. (5 percent), and is expected to be completed by December 2013. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington DC, is the contracting activity. (Source: DoD, 09/12/12)

Navy to christen JHSV

MOBILE, Ala. -- The Navy will christen the Joint High Speed Vessel Choctaw County, named for three U.S. counties in Mississippi, Alabama and Oklahoma, during a ceremony in Mobile Sept. 15 at 10 a.m. CDT. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus will deliver the principal address. The 338 foot-long aluminum catamaran is being built by Austal USA in Mobile. Choctaw County and the eight other JHSVs under contract are for fast, intra-theater transportation of troops, military vehicles, supplies and equipment. (Source: DoD, 09/13/12)

Ingalls starts destroyer fabrication

PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- Huntington Ingalls has started fabrication on the U.S. Navy's next Aegis guided missile destroyer, John Finn (DDG 113). The ship will be built at the company's Ingalls Shipbuilding division and will be the 29th Arleigh Burke-class destroyer built at Ingalls. The start of fabrication milestone signifies that 100 tons of steel have been cut for DDG 113. The Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are capable of simultaneously fighting air, surface and subsurface battles. (Source: Globe Newswire, 09/11/12)

Halter parent wins contract

Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd., parent company of VT Halter Marine, said its marine unit has won $143 million worth of shipbuilding and repair contracts. The contracts include two offshore support vessels valued at $89 million for Hornbeck Offshore Services Inc., to be built by VT Halter Marine. In November, VT Halter Marine won a $353 million contract for eight OSVs for Hornbeck, with an option to supply 24 more ships. The OSVs will be constructed in VT Halter Marine's shipyards in Moss Point, Miss. (Source: Mobile Press-Register, 09/06/12)

Cutter keel authenticated

PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- The keel of the Coast Guard National Security Cutter Hamilton (WMSL 753) was authenticated Wednesday at the company's Ingalls Shipbuilding facility. In the keel laying, the sponsor's name is welded into the keel plate in a traditional ceremony. Ingalls has delivered three 418-foot long Legend-class NSCs, designed to replace the 378‐foot Hamilton-class cutters. WMSL 753 is scheduled to be delivered in the third quarter of 2014. A fifth NSC, Joshua James (WMSL 754), is currently being built and expected to be delivered in the second quarter of 2015. (Source: Huntington Ingalls via Globe Newswire, 09/05/12)