Bollinger begins building Barracudas

Sea Power, Aug 1997 by Burgess, Richard R

Bollinger Shipyards of Lockport, La., has begun construction of the Coast Guard's newest class of patrol boats, the 87-foot Barracuda class, which features a new rescue boat launch and recovery system. The lead boat of the Barracuda class is scheduled for delivery to the Coast Guard in December 1997.

The Barracuda class is programmed to replace the 82-foot Pointclass patrol boats, 78 of which were delivered to the Coast Guard from 1960 to 1970. The 25-plus-knot Barracudas, to be named after marine species, will be assigned the roles of search and rescue, law enforcement, and alien interdiction up to 200 miles off the coast. The Barracuda, with berthing arranged to accommodate any mix of male and female crew members, will be manned by a crew of ten.

An innovative state-of-the-art feature of the Barracuda class will be a quick-release stern-launch system for the patrol boat's smaller rescue boat. During rescue or boarding operations, the quick-release system uses gravity to slide the small "daughter" boat out and back into the stern of the "mother" boat. The older system installed on the Point-class patrol boats uses a crane to lift the daughter boat over the side and lower it into the water; the new system "is much more manpower efficient, safer, and gives better response time," said T.R. Hamblin, Bollinger program manager for the Barracuda.

Bollinger Shipyards has extensive experience in building boats for the Coast Guard; the company built all 49 of the USCG's Island-class patrol boats during the mid-1 980s. Donald "Boysie" Bollinger, the company's chairman and chief executive officer, said that the current contract includes an option for up to 50 more Barracudas after the first boat is completed. If the option is exercised, Bollinger will have built more Coast Guard cutters than any other single shipyard in history.