Coast Guard Confirms Delay for New Icebreakers.

• Author: Aranake, Shreeya

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.--The pandemic and designrelated work will push the Coast Guard's new icebreakers to an expected 2025 delivery date, according to service leaders.

Icebreakers are difficult to build and are an important national asset, Rear Adm. Douglas Schofield, assistant commandant for acquisition and chief acquisition officer for the Coast Guard, said at the Navy League's annual Sea-Air-Space conference in National Harbor, Maryland. The Coast Guard is working with the Navy to collaborate on the design.

"We're excited to get her out, start building this year, and then deliver her in [2025]," Schofield added.

Commandant of the Coast Guard Adm. Karl Schultz announced last fall that the delivery date of the new icebreakers would be delayed one year due in part to COVID-19 as well as a complex design of the new cutters. The fiscal year 2022 budget requested $80 million for the procurement of three Polar Security Cutters.

The new Polar Security Cutters will have a "multi-mission construct," given that the ship will sail through extreme temperatures and conditions around the world and breakthrough ice as thick as six feet. Currently, the Coast Guard has one heavy-duty icebreaker and a medium-duty icebreaker, which is primarily used for research purposes.

The Coast Guard is working on a more effective, versatile design than that of previous icebreakers, Schofield said.

"There's a lot of great design aspects that we're working in here with more maneuverable...