A Mothership Idea for Partnership

How would I develop a proof of concept for leveraging a mothership as a partnership integrator? I'd think like a SEAL, an enterprising entrepreneur, like that guy.

Ellsworth Marine has contracted with Yacht Escort Ships (YES), for the construction of the M/V Pacific Provider. Under the management and direction of YES owner Captain Stan Antrim, the M/V Pacific Provider will be renovated to ABS class with all systems and engineering brought up date during the major refit. “Stan and his team basically invented the concept of the yacht escort ship or “shadow boat” conversion having re-fit numerous OSV’s from 130’ to over 200’,” said Ellsworth. “He understands what it takes to produce this kind of product, and we couldn’t be more pleased with his level of professionalism and enthusiastic approach.”

A former Navy Seal, Antrim holds a degree in Naval Engineering from the U.S Naval Academy. When making the transition to the private sector, Stan has managed, operated and built some of the world’s largest yachts, his first new-build project being Oceanco’s 210 foot “Lady Lola,” which was awarded Showboat’s 2002 Yacht of the Year. Work on the conversion of the F/V Shelikof is slated to start in January with the completion in early Summer of 2007.

I see an inexpensive, innovative way to fighting drug smugglers and pirates that gives a coast guard small ships someplace to rest during the down periods while distributing them over a broad area at sea for operations during the most likely times of activity. Yes, drug runners and pirates have patterns based on time of day, so something like this works.

The idea would be to match with 2 M-80 Stiletto type vessels and some Maritime Expeditionary Security Squadron (MSRON) 34-foot Sea Ark patrol boats, plus fix the flight deck to be NAVAIR rated, and cover some area with physical presence of a small but useful mothership that can or does not have to be armed, and acts primarily as a C2 communications and logistics node at sea. Find a Navy 0-5 with leadership and language skills, a Navy E-5 with a wicked creative streak, a Marine SGT who knows how to run a mini-boot camp, a few Coast Guard trainers with a tremendous amount of patience, and this is serious partnership in action.

The intent of such a program, if done right in my opinion, would be to train foreign coast guard personnel from regional countries as part of a partnership/investment model for maritime security. Said another way, part of your boarding party (manpower) is local who are undergoing on the job training to develop regional Coast Guards. As the local countries get comfortable with the equipment and develop skills and experience, just give the equipment away to build up regional security capabilities after a time frame, probably something like 10 years.

I'm sorry, but the cost of a few M-80s, a handful of 34-foot Sea Ark patrol boats, and a 160’ ~700 ton mothership might run somewhere around $100 million brand new for everything. If we were to operate this type of arrangement for 10 years developing a local Coast Guard capability, it is essentially a $10 million annual investment in equipment, and we give away stuff that not only integrates with ours, but is only 10 years old.

No question someone will want to get fancy with the gear and that would add to the cost, but all the gadgets and bonuses like UAVs and super kit still make this a $150 million program over 10 years. What do we need for something like this to work?

Partnership and leadership. I see this as one alternative evolution of Global Fleet Stations.

The key design study for the program would be logistics. It may be that a 160' mothership can't support M-80s, which makes it a no go IMO. At that point the necessity to increase size of the mothership could make the cost double, making the system less likely to be given away which is a key point to the entire concept.

H/T gCaptain