Coast Guard Offshore Patrol Cutter: Delays, Contractors, and Status

The U.S. Coast Guard’s Offshore Patrol Cutter program status, as of mid-2026, is this: a decade after the program of record was set, no cutter has been delivered, the original shipbuilder’s contract has been terminated, and the projected total cost has climbed from $12.5 billion to roughly $20 billion for the planned 25 ships.¹² Active construction has shifted to Austal USA in Mobile, Alabama, and the first Austal-built hull is now scheduled for delivery in 2027.³

Where the Program Stands in 2026

On June 12, 2026, the Coast Guard and Eastern Shipbuilding Group formally agreed to close out the Stage 1 contract entirely.³ That ended a relationship that began with a 2016 design competition and was originally supposed to deliver the lead ship, USCGC Argus, in 2021.⁴ Financial terms of the settlement have not been publicly disclosed.⁵

Two hulls Eastern started, Argus (WMSM-915) and Chase (WMSM-916), sit partially complete in Panama City, Florida. Two others that Eastern was contracted to build, Ingham (WMSM-917) and Rush (WMSM-918), were canceled outright in July 2025.⁶ Construction of new cutters is now happening only at Austal USA under the Stage 2 contract awarded in 2022.⁷

The fleet’s initial operational capability date, once set for December 2022, has slipped to June 2029, a 78-month delay.⁸ A full-rate production decision is tentatively scheduled for June 2030.²

How Costs and Schedules Slipped

The 2012 baseline estimate for 25 ships was $12.5 billion. By 2022, that figure had grown to $17.6 billion, a roughly 40 percent increase.¹ More recent reporting places the program at approximately $19.6 billion to $20 billion, up 57 percent from the original baseline.² The Coast Guard attributes the growth to the restructuring of the Stage 1 contract, the need to recompete Stage 2, and higher infrastructure costs for homeports.

Schedule performance has tracked with cost. As of mid-2025, Argus was more than five years late.⁹ Operational testing of the lead Austal-built vessel is not expected to be completed until September 2029.² The Coast Guard requested $204 million for the program in its fiscal year 2027 budget, on top of $530 million funded across fiscal years 2025 and 2026.¹⁰

What Went Wrong at Eastern Shipbuilding

Eastern Shipbuilding, a family-owned yard in Panama City, was selected in 2016 to build the first four OPCs with options for up to nine follow-on vessels, a potential scope of ten hulls worth up to $2.38 billion.⁷¹¹¹²²

The hurricane alone did not sink the effort. The GAO identified design instability as a core problem: construction on the first four hulls started before the design was complete and stable, contrary to established shipbuilding best practices, and that led to costly rework.⁹¹³⁴ By October 2022, Argus was reported as 75 percent complete and Chase at about 50 percent, but progress had stalled.

Argus was launched and christened on October 27, 2023, but the finances kept worsening.⁵ Eastern notified the Coast Guard it could not deliver the remaining vessels without what it called an “unabsorbable loss.”¹⁴ In July 2025, then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced a partial termination canceling Ingham and Rush, calling the arrangement “wasteful of taxpayer’s money.”⁶ In November 2025, Eastern suspended all remaining OPC work on Argus and Chase. CEO Joey D’Isernia cited “significant financial strain caused by the program’s structure and conditions” and called the situation “not sustainable.”¹⁵ The full termination followed seven months later.

What Happens to Argus and Chase

The fate of the two partially built hulls remains unresolved. In 2025, DHS issued a request for information exploring whether Argus and Chase could be towed from Panama City to another shipyard for completion.³ No information has been released about which yards responded or where the ships might go. Coast Guard budget documents still projected both for delivery in 2026, but reporting as of mid-2026 noted it was “unclear how complete the cutters are.”¹⁰ The service stated only that it intends to “acquire and deliver the OPC class as fast as possible.”

The Argus crew has been waiting years for a ship that does not yet exist in operational form. As of June 2025, crew members had accumulated more than 4,000 cumulative days temporarily assigned to 24 other Coast Guard units while their cutter sat incomplete.¹⁶

What Austal USA Is Building Now

Austal USA won the Stage 2 contract on June 30, 2022, after a competition that included eight shipyards conducting industry studies. The fixed-price incentive contract started at $208.26 million for detail design and long lead-time material on the fifth hull, with a potential total value of up to $3.3 billion if all eleven options are exercised.¹⁷ Eastern Shipbuilding protested the award in federal court, but a ruling affirmed the selection.¹⁵

The first Austal-built cutter, USCGC Pickering (WMSM-919), had its keel authenticated on December 8, 2025, and is under construction at Austal’s Mobile facility with all steel modules in the assembly line.¹⁸ Delivery is scheduled for 2027.³ Construction of the second Austal hull, USCGC Icarus (WMSM-920), began on August 5, 2025, under a $273 million contract option that also funded long lead-time materials for a third hull.¹⁹ In September 2025, the Coast Guard exercised an additional $314 million in options to fund long lead-time materials for the fourth, fifth, and sixth Austal-built cutters.²⁰

GAO’s Warning That Stage 2 Could Repeat Stage 1

The Government Accountability Office has been a persistent critic of the program. Its November 2025 report found that both the Stage 1 and Stage 2 shipbuilders began construction with incomplete designs, in each case contrary to established shipbuilding best practices, and in each case producing rework and delay. Stage 2 construction on the fifth OPC began in August 2024 without a stable design, raising the risk that Austal repeats the pattern seen at Eastern.⁹

The GAO also found that the program reports one aggregated cost goal for all 25 ships rather than breaking figures out by stage, which obscures accountability. Its four recommendations were to stabilize the design and test a davit prototype before authorizing further Stage 2 construction, establish a formal Coast Guard-Navy agreement to oversee Austal’s earned value management system, report cost goals separately by stage, and document how operational test results from earlier stages will inform Stage 3. DHS concurred with two and disagreed with two; the GAO maintains that all four remain warranted. Stage 3, covering the final ten hulls, is still in planning, with shipbuilder, timeline, and design all undetermined.⁹

What the OPC Is Meant to Do

The Heritage-class OPC is a 360-foot vessel designed to replace two aging classes of medium endurance cutters: the 210-foot Reliance class and the 270-foot Famous class, roughly 50 and 30 years old respectively.²¹²²

Once fielded, the 25 planned OPCs would eventually make up about 70 percent of the Coast Guard’s offshore surface fleet, sitting between the larger National Security Cutters and smaller Fast Response Cutters.²²²¹²³ The ship carries a flight deck and hangar sized for one H-60 or H-65 helicopter along with unmanned aircraft, plus three over-the-horizon small boats. Missions include drug and migrant interdiction, law enforcement, search and rescue, ports and waterways security, and defense readiness, with the Coast Guard also envisioning Arctic operations.²⁴

Homeports and What Comes Next

Homeport assignments have been announced for eight of the planned 25 cutters. The first two OPCs are assigned to Coast Guard Base Los Angeles-Long Beach, and the next two to Coast Guard Base Kodiak, Alaska.²⁵ Four are planned for Naval Station Newport, Rhode Island, with crews and families expected to arrive between 2029 and 2034. That assignment requires demolition of a condemned pier and construction of a new 1,000-foot pier, a maintenance building, and supporting facilities; Senator Jack Reed has secured over $100 million for the project.²⁶ Homeports for the remaining hulls have not been publicly announced.

The aging cutters the OPC was meant to replace continue sailing well past their intended service lives, growing more expensive to maintain each year. Whether Austal’s production line avoids the design-before-construction problems that hobbled Stage 1 will determine whether that gap closes in 2027 as planned, or drifts further.

1
Government Accountability Office. Coast Guard Offshore Patrol Cutter
2
WorkBoat. Coast Guard’s OPC Program Plagued by Growing Delays and Costs
3
USNI News. Coast Guard, Eastern Shipbuilding Terminate Offshore Patrol Cutter Contract
4
Maritime Executive. Eastern Shipbuilding Suspends Work on Offshore Patrol Cutter Program
5
WorkBoat. Coast Guard, Eastern Shipbuilding End Offshore Patrol Cutter Contract
6
WorkBoat. DHS Cancels ‘Wasteful’ OPC Shipbuilding Contract
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Naval News. US Coast Guard Selects Austal USA to Continue OPC Production
8
USNI News. Report to Congress on Coast Guard Cutter Procurement
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Government Accountability Office. Offshore Patrol Cutter Assessment
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USNI News. Coast Guard, Eastern Shipbuilding Negotiating Contract Resolution on First Two Offshore Patrol Cutters
11
Every CRS Report. Coast Guard Cutter Procurement
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Congressional Research Service. Coast Guard Cutter Procurement
13
Forbes. Coast Guard Says Main Drive Shaft Issue Puts OPC Delivery Schedule at Risk
14
MarineLink. US Partially Terminates Contract With Eastern
15
USNI News. Eastern Shipbuilding Halts Work on Coast Guard Cutter Program
16
U.S. Coast Guard. Coast Guard Cutter Argus Holds Change of Command Ceremony
17
Breaking Defense. Coast Guard Picks Austal to Build 11 Offshore Patrol Cutters
18
WorkBoat. Austal USA Lays Keel for First Offshore Patrol Cutter
19
WorkBoat. Austal USA Begins Building Second Offshore Patrol Cutter
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Austal. Offshore Patrol Cutter Options Valued US$314 Million Exercised
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U.S. Coast Guard. Offshore Patrol Cutter
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Defense Media Network. Offshore Patrol Cutter
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Government Accountability Office. Offshore Patrol Cutter Assessment
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Austal USA. Offshore Patrol Cutter
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USNI News. Coast Guard Picks First East Coast Homeport for Offshore Patrol Cutters
26
Senator Jack Reed. Reed Announces New US Coast Guard Cutters to Homeport in RI