• August 11, 2022
• Legal/Safety, News, Shipbuilding contracts, Shipyard News

Image: GAO

Bollinger Shipyards had a significant contract win back in April when it was awarded a $13,725,953 Navy contract for the production of the Mine Countermeasures Unmanned Surface Vessel (MCM USV), engineering services and other direct costs.

If all options are exercised the contract has a potential total value of nearly $123 million.

The contract was competitively procured with three offers received, and the Navy’s selection of Bollinger did not sit well with one of the other competitors, Textron Systems Corporation, of New Orleans, La. It filed a bid protest with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), arguing that the Navy misevaluated proposals and made an unreasonable source selection decision.

The GAO has now denied the protest. It has released a redacted, but still detailed, record of its decision that gives a good insight into the bid protest evaluation process—currently a hot topic in light of Eastern Shipbuilding’s protest of the Coast Guard award of Stage 2 of the Offshore Patrol Cutter program to Austal USA.

Among other things, the GAO decision on the Textron bid protest reveals a few more details about the MCM USV (it’s a “diesel-powered surface craft with a modular payload bay that can be loaded with different payload delivery systems (PDS) for missions like minesweeping and mine neutralization” that’s “about 39 feet long, with a fully aluminum hull, and relies on twin 55‑horsepower engines to travel approximately 30 miles per hour.”

The bid protest decision also sheds light on the difference in cost between the Textron and Bollinger offers and on the Navy’s bid evaluation process.

Download the decision HERE