The U.S. Coast Guard is seeking an expedited procurement of ships that can operate in ice. Concurrently, the Royal Canadian Navy has just received the sixth of the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS). This is part of a large program to replace naval assets of various classes. The AOPS were build by Irving Shipbuilding Limited in Halifax, and the comparative capabilities are shown in the table below.
|
Item |
USCG Requirement |
Canadian AOPS Capability |
|
Size |
360 x 78x 23 ft |
338 x62 x 19 ft |
|
Ice Breaking |
3 ft @ 3 knots |
Polar Class 5 / 2.3 – 3.9 ft |
|
Range |
6,500 nm |
6,800 nm |
|
Endurance |
60 days |
120 days |
|
Helicopter |
Flight Deck and Hanger |
Up to Sikorsky S-92 |
Upon completion of the Navy AOPS program, the Irving yard was to begin on the new surface combatants to replace the Halifax-Class frigates. There were delays in the design and contracting processes, which were going to create a gap at the yard where they would not be producing any ships and would lose much of their highly skilled workforce. The Canadian government stepped in and contracted the yard to build two more of the AOPS ships, which will be delivered to the Canadian Coast Guard.
There is a long history in Canada of saddling the Coast Guard with ships that were never designed for their programs. This includes inventory from the old Royal Canadian Mounted Police fleet, ships built by shipyards on speculation for the offshore oil industry, and ships acquired from other companies, both domestically and internationally.
One of the early ships that fell into this category was the Labrador, a Wind-class icebreaker built for the Royal Canadian Navy. The Navy operated the Labrador from 1954 to 1957, and it was then transferred to the Coast Guard where it was in service until 1987.
Labrador was a less-than-ideal platform for Coast Guard programs. It was directionally unstable, which required skilled shiphandling when escorting commercial ships or breaking out harbors. Although the accommodations were upgraded from military standards, they did not meet the normal standards of the Coast Guard fleet. The Canadian Coast Guard, as always, made do, and developed a saying: “Seamanship is the art of overcoming bad design.”
The two Canadian Coast Guard AOPS are already under construction, with delivery planned for 2026 and 2027 respectively. Now would be an opportune time to sell them to the U.S. and use the money to build more purpose-built ships for CCG programs.
With the Canadian dollar trading at about 0.72 of a US dollar, the U.S. would be gaining almost thirty percent on the exchange rate alone. Whether Canada is willing to sell to the U.S. in the current trade environment and whether tariffs would affect the economics are unknowns.
If both countries wanted to make a deal, this approach would benefit both coast guards, as the U.S. would quickly acquire two new vessels that meet their stated requirements, and the CCG would get to have ships of their own design rather than making do with a naval design.
Jack Gallagher is the owner of Hammurabi Marine Consulting and served in the Canadian Coast Guard for twenty-two years.