Adm. Kevin Lunday, acting commandant of the United States Coast Guard, speaks during a ceremony at Austal USA on Dec. 8, 2025. Seated far right is Meghan Pickering Seymour, the sponsor of the future USCG Pickering, and Michelle Kruger, president of Austal USA. (Lawrence Specker/TNS)
(Tribune News Service) — Shipbuilder Austal USA and the U.S. Coast Guard came together Monday to celebrate work on a ship that represents a critical future for both parties – if they can overcome problems so severe that they caused another shipyard to drop out.
The future USCG Pickering is the first of a series of 360-foot Offshore Patrol Cutters that Austal will build in Mobile, Ala. It and its sister ships will replace smaller cutters that are 30 to 50 years old; like them, the new ships will serve a wide range of missions.
“Today not only marks a significant milestone in the life of this ship, it’s a critical step forward on our journey to build a stronger, more agile, capable and responsive Coast Guard and fighting force,” said Adm. Kevin Lunday, acting commandant of the Coast Guard. “The Heritage class of offshore patrol cutters will be the workhorse of our oceangoing fleet, providing critical advanced capabilities that will strengthen the service’s ability to protect our homeland and deter our adversaries.”
“The Heritage-class OPCs will fill a critical gap in the Coast Guard’s ability to secure our maritime borders, interdict drugs, combat illegal fishing, respond to disasters, and to carry out missions that most Americans will never see or ever hear about,” said Mississippi congressman Mike Ezell, chairman of the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “But Americans depend on them. These cutters will serve on the front lines for decades to come. And the men and women who will sail them deserve the very best that we can give them.”
When the Coast Guard selected Austal USA in 2022 to build up to 11 of the cutters, it was a huge deal for a shipyard just beginning to diversify into steel construction. At the time, officials said the contract was worth up to $3.3 billion.
But Austal USA is the second shipyard to take a swing at the cutter program, and the results from the first have not been encouraging. In 2016, the Coast Guard chose Eastern Shipbuilding in Panama City, Fla., to build the first four cutters, and in 2018 the yard was authorized to begin construction of the first one, to be named the Argus. But the same year, Eastern Shipbuilding suffered heavy damage from Hurricane Michael.
Eastern continued work despite the setbacks. It sued over the decision to award ships to Austal, but lost the case in 2023.
In mid-November, the U.S. Naval Institute News reported that Eastern had stopped work on all four ships in progress, citing “significant financial strain caused by the program’s structure and conditions.” The yard had previously stopped work on hulls three and four, USNI News said, and the Department of Homeland Security had taken the extraordinary step of issuing “a request for information on towing two of the hulls to a new yard to be completed.”
Then at the end of November, the Government Accountability Office issued a report on the cutters. The document included a stark warning that the program’s problems may still be with it.
“Contrary to shipbuilding leading practices and our prior recommendations,” it said, “the Coast Guard authorized construction of stage 1 ships [at Eastern Shipbuilding] before the design was stable ... This has resulted in years of rework with limited construction progress on all ships, which we highlighted as a risk in 2020. The Coast Guard once again authorized construction to start on the stage 2 lead ship [at Austal USA] before the design was stable ... This increases the risk that stage 2 will encounter the same challenges, rework, and schedule delays as stage 1.”
Austal announced in September that in addition to contracts for the first two ships, the Coast Guard had authorized $314 million to pay for long-lead-time materials for three more.
The GAO report also charged that “the program is unable to set realistic schedule goals,” that “the Coast Guard does not know how much the OPC program will cost” because its estimate is outdated, and that the Coast Guard is flying blind by ordering more ships before there’s been any operational testing to identify shortcomings in the first ones.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Coast Guard, partially disputed four recommendations in the report. It said the Coast Guard had changed its procedure related to design maturity in 2023 so that it “better aligns with shipbuilding leading practices.” It also said it did not see a need for a more formal oversight arrangement of the program, because “the existing coordination … is sufficient and presents a united front to the contractor.”
DHS agreed that cost goals should be set for each stage of the program and estimated it would be done by September 2026.
It said the entire program was being assessed in light of developments such as accelerated funding made available in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act; the “termination for default” of cutters 3 and 4 at Eastern; and “ongoing negotiations” on the fate of cutters 1 and 2.
DHS said it would work to ensure that “operational testing and engineering results from Offshore Patrol Cutter Stages 1 and 2, as well as leading practices for ship design, are appropriately incorporated into the overall program plan for Stage 3 Offshore Patrol Cutters.” It has yet to be determined who will build the stage 3 ships, but there could be more than a dozen of them: The Coast Guard’s plans call for 25 of them.
Austal USA is in the process of building a giant new assembly hall where future cutters, and other ships, will be built. The company has said it expects that facility, due to come online next year, will add about 1,000 new jobs.
Company officials stressed on Monday that they’ve already taken a running start on the cutter program.
“Sixteen of the 20 modules that will make up Pickering are under construction,” said Larry Ryder, Austal USA’s vice president of business development and external affairs. “She’s 25% complete and the pace is picking up. She’ll be in the water late next year and be delivered in 2027. We’ve made a lot of progress since the contract awarded to us in October 2022. In addition to OPC 5 which we’re celebrating today, we also have started construction on OPC 6.”
“We are deeply committed to the United States Coast Guard and the Offshore Patrol Cutter Program as a core priority of our shipbuilding efforts,” said Austal USA President Michelle Kruger. “This program represents more than just a contract. It is a partnership built on trust. shared values and a mutual dedication to delivering ships that will serve our nation with excellence and reliability. … From the engineers and designers to the shipbuilders on the floor, every member of our team is focused on delivering the Offshore Patrol Cutter program, starting with the Pickering.”
After Monday’s ceremony, Lunday and Ezell told reporters they were confident that Austal has what it takes for the program to shake off its problems and steam ahead.
“This is going to be a tremendous program,” said Adm. Lunday. “We have significant design maturity as the production is really accelerating here at Austal. Austal has proven itself and its ability with its modular shipbuilding approach. So we know the shipyard very well and they’re off to a very strong start. And so we have high confidence in the production.
“And we have this great support in the budget reconciliation of $24.6 billion that is funding this recapitalization that gives stable, predictable funding to shipbuilders like Austal so that they can do the production at speed and scale,” he said.
“I have full confidence,” said Rep. Ezell. “I’ve been out here a number of times. You know, this is just the beginning of what’s going to be happening in the years to come ahead. We’ve toured and we’ve talked to so many of these men and women that are building these ships. And I feel very confident … we’re going to get this job done.”
The ceremony held Monday was called a keel authentication. The ship’s sponsor, Meghan Pickering Seymour, is a descendant of its namesake, Timothy Pickering. He was an officer in the colonial army during the revolutionary war who later served as secretary of state under presidents George Washington and John Adams, among other accomplishments.
Seymour, a Florida veterinarian, is the wife of an active-duty Coast Guard officer. She said other members of her family had been or were in the service.
“Being part of the Coast Guard family, I have witnessed firsthand the professionalism, the resilience and the deep sense of purpose that define this service,” she said. “I have seen the long nights, the unexpected calls and the trust placed in those who safeguard our waters, protect our shores and render aid when hope seems slim.
“Those values are the foundation upon which the cutter Pickering is being built and they will guide her future crew as they carry out the mission with honor,” she said. “Having met and communicated with the team here at Austal, I have complete confidence that the cutter Pickering, the fifth offshore patrol cutter to be commissioned by the United States Coast Guard, will be crafted with the highest level of expertise, precision and pride.”
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