USCG tries to lengthen boats from 110 to 123 results disasterous

[sdowney717]

They also did get 2 new boats for 2 billion and 2 others on the way, lost 8 ships due to the lenthening process where the steel got floppy and the boats unsafe and the other 5 billion is where?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Coast-...&asset=&ccode=

[Dave Gudeman]

They spent $90M adding new steel to old hulls and when they were done the boats were ruined, apparently because of some mismatch between the old and new steel. Can anyone tell me if this sounds like a genuinely unforeseeable problem or if the shipyard just royally screwed up by using the wrong steel?

And if it was a gamble why wouldn't they try it first with one boat instead of doing all five at once?

[PAR]

There could be a lot of explanations, but often it's a supplier that's supposed to sell them a specific grade, then substitute a different one to save some money or make a delivery deadline.

[SheetWise]

It reads -- to me -- like a hit piece. There's always another side to the story, and when it comes out you usually have to wonder why it was ever a story in the first place. But then -- this is an AP story ... a lot of static and posturing with a few obligatory statements representing unverified facts.

They should have focused on the lengthening of the ships, it probably would have developed into a good story -- and it appears to be a story worth pursuing. The rest of it is just noise.

[Mr Efficiency]

It's all bullship you think ?

[Stumble]

The yard that did the extension work is here in New Orleans, and it has been covered pretty heavily by the local news. Without making any prejudgments, it appears that the yard knew during the first refit that something wasn't right, exactly what was going wrong I don't know. And the psi testing for the extension was only running about 50% of the design spec. The yard then hid the testing results from the USCG, which raises some real issues in terms of liability.

Assuming this is correct, it looks like the yard could be on the hook for the loss of at least the seven later refit ships, though the first one they may be able to pass the buck onto the designers, or suppliers.