Bollinger Shipyards is an American constructor of ships, workboats and patrol vessels. Its thirteen shipyards and forty drydocks are located in Louisiana and Texas. Its drydocks range in capacity from vessels of 100 tons displacement to 22,000 tons displacement. The firm was founded in 1946.
Bollinger secured the contract to build approximately fifty Marine Protector cutters. These vessels were staffed by a crew of 10. Uniquely for Coast Guard vessels of this size they were designed to be capable of being crewed by crews of mixed sex. These high speed vessels were lightly armed, mounting just two Browning M2 fifty caliber machine guns. But they were equipped with a stern launching ramp, capable of launching and retrieving a high speed pursuit boat while the cutter was still in motion. The launch and retrieval of the pursuit boat required just one sailor to remain on deck. Over 70 vessels were constructed, before the production line was shut down, with 4 being built for other nations, and 4 being built for the United States Navy, although those vessels are manned and operated by the Coast Guard.
Bollinger originally built 49 Island class cutters, so called because each cutter was named after an Island. These vessels were staffed by a crew of 18, and their primary armament was a 25 mm autocannon. Bollinger secured a contract to refit eight of the Island Class cutters, adding thirteen feet to their stern, so they too could launch and retrieve a pursuit boat from a rear launching ramp. The refit also included replacing the original deckhouse and refitting the crew accommodation so they could carry a mixed gender crew of 18. The conversion added 15 tons to each vessel. All of the eight refitted Island class cutters' hulls would crack when driven at high speed in a heavy seas, and proved to be so unseaworthy that they were all withdrawn from service, forcing the scrapping of the conversion program. As a result, in August 2011, the US government sued Bollinger over the failed modifications, alleging that the company made false statements about the hull strength that would result from its extensions to the patrol boats. The suit was dismissed.
Sentinel Class cutters
On September 26, 2008, Bollinger was awarded US$88 million to build the prototype of the Sentinel-class fast-response cutters. In 2008, Bollinger secured a contract to build the first group of 24 to 34 cutters. On 5 May 2016 U.S. Coast Guard signed a new contract with Bollinger to build 26 additional vessels, bringing the total on order to 58 at a cost of almost $3.8 billion. A news release said that the new ships will replace ones that Bollinger built more than 30 years previously. The 240 ton vessels are staffed by a mixed-sex crew of 22, and are armed with a remote-operated Mk 38 Mod 2 25 mm autocannon and four.50 caliber crew-served Browning M2 machine guns. These vessels can also stern launch and retrieve a high speed pursuit boat, without coming to a stop. They were designed for missions of five days. The first three vessels were launched in 2011, and as of mid-2017 23 had entered service, with deliveries occurring every 73 days.
Bollinger was one of five contractors which bid to build new heavy polar icebreakers for the United States Coast Guard. The five bidders were each awarded a $20 million contract for development work. Bollinger announced that, if it were the winning bidder, it would have built the icebreakers in its Tampa, Florida shipyard, which it predicted would have employed 1,000 workers for ten years. However, the vessels were awarded to VT Halter Marine.
United States Navy vessels
''Cyclone''-class patrol ships
Bollinger built 14 Cyclone-class patrol ships for the U.S. Navy between 1993 and 2000. The ships are 179 feet long and carry a crew of 28. Their mission is coastal patrol and interdiction surveillance. These ships can also provide full mission support for Navy SEALs and other special operations forces. As of 2010, four of these vessels have been decommissioned in the Navy. Three had been loaned to the Coast Guard to fill patrol hours but have been returned to the USN as of October 2011. one vessel, PC-1, was transferred to the Philippine Navy, as an excess defense article. As of 2015, ten of the US Navy's thirteen Cyclone-class patrol ships were deployed to the Persian Gulf to deal with a potential conflict with Iran. The remaining three ships of the class are slated to be transferred to Naval Station Mayport in Florida to work primarily with drug interdiction work with U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command / U.S. Fourth Fleet.
