(Tribune News Service) — Bollinger Shipyards has finalized a $2.1 billion contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, first announced last fall, to produce four new Arctic Security Cutters for the U.S. Coast Guard.

The vessels, which will be built at Bollinger’s Houma shipyard, will be capable of breaking through 4 feet of ice, traveling more than halfway around the globe and remaining at sea for two months at a time.

The deal is part of a partnership between the U.S., Canada and Finland to accelerate the production of a new generation of icebreakers at a time when President Donald Trump is focused on “restoring America’s maritime dominance” and catching up to competitors in shipbuilding.

With a price tag of more than $500 million each, construction of the vessels will support more than 1,000 jobs at peak production, company officials said.

“The Arctic Security Cutter is one of the most consequential and time-sensitive shipbuilding programs in U.S. Coast Guard history,” Ben Bordelon, president and CEO of Bollinger Shipyards, said in a Dec. 29 statement after the contract was finalized.

Lockport-based Bollinger is no newcomer to defense contracting. The company has built 187 cutters for the Coast Guard over the past 40 years and has a separate deal with the Coast Guard to build the next generation of heavy polar icebreakers, known as the Polar Security Cutters, at its shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

The company is leveraging that experience to build the Arctic cutters, which are being produced on an expedited schedule, company officials said.

The vessels will be roughly the length of a football field, weigh 9,000 tons and be powered by 7,200-kilowatt diesel engines. They’re being designed and engineered mostly by a Canadian company, Seaspan Shipyards, and will be a variant on an existing model of icebreaker being built for the Canadian Coast Guard.

From shipyard to sea trial

It’ll take more than 3,000 tons of steel to make the vessels — and not just any steel. The new class of icebreakers will be built out of a thick, high-strength steel that allows it to cut through a meter of ice at 4 knots, or about 4.5 mph.

Huge plates of steel will arrive at the shipyard by truck. The plates will be heated using specialized equipment, then bent and molded around a frame and welded into place. The work will take place both inside the massive warehouse at the shipyard and outside.

In some respects, the vessels will be much like the dozens of other naval vessels Bollinger has built over the years. But they’ll have special features that include rotating thrusters, ice-strengthened propellers and advanced sonar and radar arrays, according to procurement documents.

Unlike most military vehicle programs, development of the cutters is proceeding relatively rapidly. Experts say that’s because the project relies on an existing, proven design.

Bollinger’s first cutter is expected to take just over two years from its first welds to its final tests. Once assembly of the first vessel is underway, Bollinger will be able to have multiple boats under construction at the same time at the same shipyard, company spokesperson TJ Tatum said.

The first vessel is scheduled to roll off the production line in 2028. But it will spend the next year in the water — first at the dock, where subcontractors will bring the vessels up to U.S. government specifications by adding specialized communication equipment, any weaponry and other technology.

Then, the freshly minted cutters will head to sea trials, with a specialized team from the shipyard teaching its Coast Guard customers how to use the vessel. Its new crew will then put it through its paces on the water before its eventual delivery, scheduled for 2029.

Coast Guard plays catch-up

The vessels will be the first new model of U.S. icebreakers in more than a quarter-century, ensuring the Coast Guard’s ability to control and defend the U.S.’s northern border and marine routes “against adversaries’ aggressive economic and military actions in the Arctic,” according to acting Commandant Adm. Kevin Lunday.

The U.S. has just three vessels capable of polar operations, two medium and one heavy. That’s less than half of the eight to nine polar icebreakers Coast Guard representatives say it requires to meet its operational needs in polar regions.

“In Alaska, the exclusive economic zone is huge,” said Peter Rybski, a retired U.S. Navy commander who lives in Finland and writes a newsletter about icebreakers. “And even though we stopped exploring oil in there, we’re now claiming the extended continental shelf, and we have almost no ability to patrol it outside of summertime.”

The trilateral partnership between the U.S., Finland and Canada — dubbed the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort, or ICE Pact — was first announced in July 2024 after years of delays and cost overruns in past domestic icebreaking.

In addition to the four vessels set to be built by Bollinger in Houma, two others will be built in Finland.

In order to build some of the new ships abroad, Trump signed a memorandum of understanding with Finland to build four Arctic Security Cutters in Finland and “up to seven” more at U.S. shipyards at a total cost of more than $6.1 billion.

Senior Bollinger officials have traveled to Finland and Canada multiple times since the pact was finalized, Tatum said.

“This close working relationship will continue through the life of the program as it transitions to a full U.S.-built program,” Tatum said.

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