Arctic Security Cutter RFI issued by U.S. Coast Guard

The request for information concerning this 'medium' icebreaker program specifically includes foreign shipyards and specifies delivery within 36 months of contract award.

Last week was a big week for maritime news, with the Sea-Air-Space conference and the release of two executive orders related to the maritime sector: Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance and Modernizing Defense Acquisitions and Spurring Innovation in the Defense Industrial Base.

With all of that, you may have missed (as I did) a U.S. Coast Guard Request for Information (RFI) posted to SAM.gov, the official U.S. Government Contracting Website. I was a couple hours into my 50th birthday party when this RFI- concerning the often-discussed Arctic Security Cutter- was posted on Friday, April 11, at 1:14pm EDT (8:14 pm here in Finland):

Request for Information - Arctic Security Cutter (ASC): Icebreaking Capable Vessels or Vessel Designs that are Ready for Construction

The purpose of this RFI is to increase the USCG’s understanding of the current status and capability of both the U.S. and broader international maritime industrial base as it pertains to existing icebreaking capable vessels or vessel designs that are ready for construction or already in production.

Specifically, the USCG seeks to understand what existing vessels or production ready vessel designs satisfy or closely satisfy the below preliminary capability parameters. Additionally, the USCG would like to gain insight on recently proven execution and build strategies as well as the current capability and availability of global shipyards that could support the construction and subsequent launch of an existing icebreaking capable vessel design within THIRTY-SIX (36) months of a contract award date.

The Arctic Security Cutter

Most regular readers of Sixty Degrees North are probably familiar with the U.S. Coast Guard’s Polar Security Cutter (PSC) program, formerly known as the Heavy Polar Icebreaker Program. If you’re not familiar with this program, I recommend starting here:

Don't Double Down on the Polar Security Cutter

I remember first seeing the term Arctic Security Cutter back in 2020, in the U.S. Coast Guard’s response to President Trump’s 2020 Memorandum on Safeguarding U.S. National Interests in the Arctic and Antarctic Regions. Unfortunately, that response was never made public so I can’t check what it said.

Since 2023, though, the U.S. Coast Guard has said that it needs eight or nine Polar Icebreakers to carry out its missions, with at least three of them being ‘heavy.’ Heavy refers to the PSC project currently underway. The term ‘Arctic Security Cutter’ has come to mean the other five or six icebreakers, sometimes also called ‘medium’ icebreakers. Additionally, the ICE (Icebreaker Collaboration Effort) Pact MOU, signed by the USA, Finland, and Canada in November of 2024, refers to “arctic and polar icebreakers.”

This RFI gives us the preliminary parameters for the ASC:

Three quick points about the parameters. First, this is for a relatively small vessel. Second, the icebreaking capability requirement listed here is quite modest. The U.S. Coast Guard’s current medium icebreaker, Healy, has a design specification of 4.5 feet at 3 knots. The requirement of 3 feet at 3 knots is more in line with the capabilities of Canada’s Harry DeWolf-class Artic Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS) or the Norwegian patrol vessel Svalbard. Third, the range is also quite low. By comparison, Canda’s planned program icebreakers will have a range of 20,000nm at 12 knots, and the multi-purpose vessels 12,000 nm at 10-14 knots.

Timeline

As I noted above, the RFI is specifically aimed at shipyards that can build an icebreaker within 36 months:

For interested shipyards, please confirm and demonstrate (with supporting documentation) how your facility or facilities have the availability, capacity, and capability to build and launch a vessel designed per the parameters outlined in Section 2.0 within THIRTY-SIX (36) months of a contract award date.

Coincidentally, I recently wrote about the ability of Finnish shipyards to do just that two weeks ago:

Three years is the norm here in Finland. Although I specifically mentioned Davie’s Helsinki Shipyard in that article, it is not the only one in Finland with that capability. Rauma Marine Constructions (RMC), a shipyard located in the city of Rauma on Finland’s western coast, can also build an icebreaker in three years. I recently visited RMC to tour their facilities and talk about icebreaker construction with the shipyard’s leadership. I will write more about what I saw and discussed there in the very near future. For now, it is sufficient to say that they too have the experience and ability to quickly design and build icebreakers for the U.S. Coast Guard.

Thoughts and Comments

First, thanks to one of my readers for pointing out this RFI to me earlier today.

While there has been lots of talk about building more icebreakers quickly, this is the first concrete action that I’ve seen regarding the matter. At this point, it is only a piece of paper:

This notice is a Request for Information (RFI) only. This RFI is issued by the United States Coast Guard (USCG) for information and planning purposes, pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 10, Market Research. It does not constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP) or a promise to issue an RFP in the future. All participants are advised that the Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs that result from responding to this RFI; all costs associated with responding to this RFI will be at the interested party’s expense.

While this RFI- along with the executive orders issued last week- demonstrate momentum towards both reforming acquisitions and acquiring more capabilities for the U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S. commercial fleets, I will start to seriously believe change is coming when the U.S. Government starts spending money on the project.

I found the limited range and modest icebreaking capability in the parameters surprising. According to someone familiar with the matter, the ASCs are intended for three-season operation in the East and West Arctic. Based on the size in the parameters, the vessels will be capable of moving between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean. With the delay in the PSCs, I thought that perhaps the U.S. Coast Guard would want a more robust icebreaking capability and longer range for these vessels. I look forward to learning how they will fill the gaps in U.S. Coast Guard icebreaking capabilities discussed here. (Perhaps I’ll look at the numbers and capabilities again soon in a future post).

At this point, it is still possible for President Trump to see an icebreaker delivered during his presidency- if the U.S. Government acts soon. I’ll be watching closely for more details.

Stay tuned for more information about my RMC visit where I got to see the progress being made on the Finnish Navy’s ice-capable corvettes.

Until next time-

All the Best,

PGR