USCG to hold industry day on polar icebreaker replacement

The Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star, a high-endurance icebreaker home-ported in Seattle, sits on the ice in the Ross Sea near Antarctica while underway in support of Operation Deep Freeze 2015

JANUARY 14, 2016 — The Coast Guard yesterday used the fbo.gov website to announce that its Polar Icebreaker Replacement Program intends to host an Industry Day followed by one-on-one meetings with prospective shipbuilders and ship designers as a part of ongoing market research.

Both the industry day and one-on-one meetings will be held in the Washington, DC metro area.

The Industry Day is tentatively planned to occur in March 2016. The one-on-one sessions will be scheduled to take place in the weeks following Industry Day.

An announcement detailing specific locations, times, and response requirements will be posted at a later date.

In advance of these details, the USCG is releasing a draft data package that includes a notional program schedule, notional Polar Icebreaker requirements, and questions that the Government intends to discuss during the one-on-one meetings.

A recent Congressional Research Service report estimated that a new polar icebreaker could cost around $900 million to $1 billion.

Read the FBO announcement HERE