US Navy Awards 40 PB Flight 2 Contracts
A pair of U.S. boatbuilders have been awarded contracts to deliver up to seventy-three 40-Foot Patrol Boats (40 PB) for the U.S. Navy's Naval Expeditionary Combat Command.
The indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts were awarded to Louisiana-based Metal Shark and Oregon-based ReconCraft, and the maximum cumulative dollar value for both deals combined is $290 million over a seven-year period.
Designed by Metal Shark’s in-house engineering team specifically for the Navy, the 40 PB has been built by Metal Shark since award of the 40 PB Flight 1 contract in 2017. With the $6,507,040 initial Flight 2 award, 40 PB production will continue in force at Metal Shark’s South Louisiana production facilities. ReconCraft, of Clackamas, Oregon was also awarded a $7,737,536 initial 40 PB Flight 2 contract. The first Flight 2 orders are expected to be completed by December 2025.
“Winning 40 PB Flight 2 is a huge win for the entire Metal Shark family, our suppliers, and the state of Louisiana,” said Metal Shark CEO Chris Allard. “We have developed our processes, built our facilities, and grown and trained our team specifically to accommodate high volume, rapid and repeatable, high quality, serialized construction of complex vessels like 40 PB. With the award of Flight 2 we will continue to showcase the skills of our Louisiana workforce while supplying these important combatant craft to our fighting forces.”
Metal Shark is still building fourteen 40 PB vessels under the 40 PB Flight 1 IDIQ, with a total of 42 units delivered to date.
Visually distinctive thanks to its chiseled, angular profile and a unique faceted hull, 40 PB is a ballistic-protected combatant craft powered by twin diesel inboards and water jets. Metal Shark designed a moderate aft deadrise, wide-waterplane, sharp-entry hull form that not only achieves 35+ knot sprint speeds while displaying superb dynamic stability in a range of conditions, but also offers enhanced handling and greatly reduced operating cost at the 10-15 knot escort and cruise speeds where the vessel spends the bulk of its operational life. 40 PB features an advanced C4ISR suite and can be armed with a range of crew-served and remotely operated weapons systems.
