Twin Icebreaker Projects Progressing at Bollinger’s Gulf Coast Yards

Modules of the future Polar Security Cutter under construction at Bollinger Mississippi on Aug. 5, 2026. USNI News PASCAGOULA, MISS. — The rose-brown hull of the first heavy polar icebreaker for the Coast Guard is taking shape after years of delays on the Gulf Coast.

The stern sections of the future USCGC Polar Sentinel (WMSP-21) are now standing almost four stories high in the middle of the Bollinger Mississippi shipyard, USNI News observed during a visit to the shipyard on Aug. 5. As of early August, the stern section of the future Polar Security Cutter was positioned to be welded in place.

A few hundred yards away, workers in the steel panel line of the shipyard were working in the Mississippi heat to shape the specialized steel for Polar Sentinel. Program manager Josh Carpenter showed USNI News the almost 1.5 inch thick steel that forms the outer hull of the future icebreaker lying in stacks on the shop floor waiting to be shaped. The specialized EQ-47 steel alloy is highly effective in subzero temperatures of Antarctica but difficult to work with in the shipyard, requiring preheating before bending and welding that adds extra steps to the construction process.

Under cover of the panel line, shipyard workers stretch the thick sheets of what will be the ice belt of the future Polar Sentinel over the inverted frame of a module that will be added to the others in the yard. After stops, starts and experiments with construction methods, Carpenter told USNI News the shipyard had a firm handle on the quirks of the assembly and settled into a good rhythm on the program.

Artist’s Rendering of Coast Guard Polar Security Cutter Bollinger has overseen the project since it inherited the contract when it bought the yard from V.T. Halter in 2022. V.T. Halter won the initial 2019 for an estimated cost of $2.7 billion for three hulls. Last year, the Coast Guard awarded a $951.6 million contract to Bollinger to adjust for the cost increase for the production of ice breaker. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the cost for three hulls to be at $5.1 billion.

From the government side, the Coast Guard and Naval Sea Systems Command — which is overseeing the program on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security — have wrestled with the complexities of the Polar Security Cutter program for the better part of a decade.

In June, the Government Accountability Office said Polar Sentinel would deliver in 2033 due in part to, “poor program management and lack of insight into the extent of challenges, which stemmed in part from government and contractor inexperience,” according to the GAO report.

Workers bend steel plates at Bollinger Mississippi on Aug. 5, 2026. USNI News photo Both the Coast Guard and Bollinger affirmed the schedule for Polar Sentinel as part of a 2025 $951.6 million contract adjustment for the program.

“The Coast Guard awarded a contract for the first PSC in 2019. It is expected to be delivered in Fiscal Year 2030, with PSC #2 and PSC #3 following in 2032 and 2034,” reads a statement from the service last week.

Likewise, in July, Bollinger officials told Congress the program was tracking to a 2030 delivery with 33 of the 85 modules of the ship under construction with an estimated 43 to be underway by the end of the year.

Arctic Security Cutter

Rendering of the Bollinger team bid for the Arctic Security Cutter. Bollinger image Two hours away in Houma, La., a second Bollinger-led ice breaker program is taking shape in Bollinger Houma and partner Edison Chouest Offshore’s LaShip yards. Starting in April, the first steel sheets of Bollinger’s Arctic Security Cutter variant were welded together in bays at LaShip, just across the Houma Navigation Canal.

The two versions of the Arctic Security Cutters, developed as part of the Trump administration’s shipbuilding push, are being built in shipyards in Finland and the U.S. The Bollinger design is being built in parallel with the Rauma Marine Constructions on the Gulf of Bothnia. Canadian shipbuilder Davie is building a separate Arctic Security Cutter design in Helsinki and in a separate yard in Texas.

The initial request for proposal for the ASC went out in November, and Bollinger met with Rauma, Seaspan, which had the ASC design. Bollinger was able to take the design and collaborate with Rauma to share lessons across the two yards, Bollinger Houma general manager Mark Matta told USNI News earlier this month.

“We bought a functional design that was ready to start to go into a production design period, and we we did two units. Rama did two. We did two,” he said. “We’ve been collaborating with Rama this whole time and getting lessons learned… We’ve with them several times. [We’re] talking supply chains and our engineers are talking.”

Bollinger Houma viewed from LaShip on Aug. 4, 2026. USNI News photo The initial long-lead contract was awarded the just after Christmas with Bollinger starting assembly two months ahead of the formal construction contract, USNI News reported in July. To accelerate the schedule, Bollinger leveraged more than a dozen facilities and 4,000 employees around the region and the relationship with LaShip.

“Distributed shipbuilding, we’ve been doing it for a long, long time before it became a sexy buzzword around the Beltway,” Matta told USNI News earlier this month. “But we control it within our family of our shipyards.”

LaShip is building the mid-body of the first ASC, while, nearby, Bollinger Larose is building the bow and stern sections, and Bollinger Gulfport is building the superstructure before all the pieces come together in Houma.

“It’s all hands on deck, where we are certainly using all the resources to get this program moving very quickly,” Bollinger president Ben Bordelon told USNI News last month. “That direction that was given by the White House to make sure that schedule is king and let’s not make changes and reinvent the wheel on stuff.”