WP,pg1: Costly Coast Guard Fleet Update Falters (Another fiasco!)

Costly Fleet Update Falters
Contractors Oversee Coast Guard Project
By Renae Merle and Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 8, 2006; Page A01

A multibillion-dollar effort to modernize the Coast Guard's fleet has suffered delays, cost increases, design flaws and, most recently, the idling of eight 123-foot patrol boats that were found to be not seaworthy after an $88 million refurbishment.

The sidelining of eight of 10 Miami-based cutters worsens a patrol-boat crisis while the Coast Guard is preparing for an exodus of Cubans that could happen when dictator Fidel Castro is no longer in power, Coast Guard leaders acknowledge.

More broadly, congressional critics warn that early mistakes in the 25-year modernization program, called Deepwater -- the Coast Guard's largest contract ever -- are hobbling the service's transformation into a front-line homeland security force.

With the failure of the retrofitting program, eight of 49 boats in the service's workhorse fleet of Island-class patrol boats are out of action. Coast Guard leaders reported last year that only 25 percent of the aging cutters were fully "mission capable," because of maintenance problems and deployment of some boats to Iraq. In reports submitted to Congress, the Coast Guard projected that the fleet would be able to log about 80 percent of its targeted 98,200 operational hours a year.

Meanwhile, a Coast Guard plan to fill the gap by accelerating development of its next-generation cutter by 10 years has stalled because of technical problems....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/07/AR2006120702037.html

:sarcasm:

to run the coast guard.

123 foot patrol boats?

Who the hell is doing/did that work?????????????????

They stretched the 110ft boat by adding a rear launch and recovery ramp like on the newer cutters. Apparently the added lift aft is causing metal fatigue when operated in high seas

anyone ever think about this? How much it is costing the American people for anything. 11 million dollars each and they fucked it up?????

Each ship, each plane we pay for costs tens of millions. Why? Does anyone really think that it costs 24 million dollars to build one jet? Does anyone else really think that either they should never have tried to lengthen these boats or that for 11 million dollars they should have done it right? I mean, am I being unreasonable in thinking that I should get the bang I expect out of my buck, even if it is the incompetents in the federal government who are spending the money?

This is par for the course with them.