US shipbuilding cancer spreads to the Coast Guard

Byron, what is your take on the "Crumpled Cutter Crisis?" Sounds like bad engineering, design, and management.

The first problems appeared in 2004, when the patrol boat Matagorda was fleeing Hurricane Ivan off the coast of Florida. The Island-class ship had just undergone an $11 million upgrade that included extending its hull from 110 feet to 123 feet. Adm. Thomas H. Collins, then commandant of the Coast Guard, called it the "leading symbol of our service's transformation."

Soon after the hurricane, the Coast Guard found a six-inch crack in the ship's deck and buckling in its hull.

The Coast Guard abandoned plans to overhaul all 49 of its 110-foot boats. In 2005, the eight ships already converted were put on restrictive duty that prohibited them from operating in seas higher than eight feet.

Transforming into what? Oh, no word on anyone being fired or dragged in front of Congress. Unlike this baby, those ships are not going to give their nation 64 years of service.