Bollinger Shipyards, Inc., Lockport, La., and the United States Coast Guard celebrated a production and relationship milestone today with the delivery of Coastal Patrol Boat 52* SEA LION, WPB 87352, an 87-foot vessel of the Marine Protector Class, and the 100th patrol boat or cutter**, built by Bollinger for the Coast Guard. Bollinger has built the entire Coast Guard patrol boat fleet that includes 49, 110-foot Island Class and 51, 87-foot Marine Protector Class vessels.
“We are extremely proud and deeply appreciative of our dedicated, skilled people who have accomplished this feat and all of the Coast Guard personnel who have worked with us as partners from the initial contracts as an effective team to help us achieve this significant accomplishment,” said Donald T. “Boysie” Bollinger, chairman and CEO of Bollinger Shipyards, Inc. We are proud to be one of the ‘…right partnerships with others’ as emphasized by Admiral Tom Collins, Commandant of the Coast Guard in his recent State of the Coast Guard address.”
Bollinger Shipyards has served the Coast Guard since 1984 with the design and construction of the 110 foot ISLAND CLASS CUTTERS. The company began building a second class of cutters for the Coast Guard in 1996 when Bollinger won a contract to build the first Marine Protector Class cutter. Subsequent contracts and exercised options for Island Class and Marine Protector Class cutters have increased the total delivered to 100, with seven more under construction.
In addition, Bollinger is the first contractor to initiate production in the Coast Guard’s massive $17 billion
Deepwater program that will transform just about everything in the Coast Guard from facilities to jet aircraft. Working as a subcontractor to Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, Bollinger has begun the lengthening and modification of all 49 of the 110-foot Island Class cutters to 123-feet with enhanced capabilities in command, control, communications, computers, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR). VT Halter will supply the superstructures or “houses.” In the future, Bollinger and VT Halter will build the replacements for the 123 cutters.