Westport Shipyard Launches Composite 43m Cutter
Westport’s launch of the Global Response Cutter (GRC-43) from its composite patrol vessel series (CPV) represents a significant milestone while marking a return to the company’s commercial roots. The composite GRC-43 offers many advantages to the world’s Coast Guards and Navy’s over aluminum and steel builds, including but not limited to superior weight to strength/distinct thermal advantages/non-corrosive properties while in parallel significantly reducing maintenance costs/increasing operational on station time, and life cycles of the patrol vessels. The GRC43 was built/modeled to the US Coast Guard requirements using American Bureau of Shipbuilding (ABS) rules for high speed craft. The program’s intent is to offer a series built patrol vessel to U.S. agencies, (Navy/Coast Guard/Special Operations/Homeland Security) and foreign military. “This is a fully executable program that ensures a high quality “off the shelf” platform ensuring the vessels predictable operation in unpredictable environments,” states Philip Purcell, Vice President of the Shipyard.