In the year 2000 A.D. the active duty careers of many of our present junior officers will culminate. Some of them will be captains. A few will be admirals. What will the Coast Guard be like at that time?
Two factors will affect such a prediction. The first, and probably the most significant, is the influence that we, the officers, will exert, within, of course, the constraints of budget, politics, and technological advance. The second will be technological advance itself. If certain prominent futurists are to be believed, technology will advance so rapidly that the total change that will take place between now and the year 2000 will be comparable to that which has taken place between 1790, when the Coast Guard was formed, and the present.
Yet, the Coast Guard’s ability to adapt to change will be slowed by the expensive system of ships, planes, and stations we now have. Our budget will require that we cling to methods we can follow with our existing equipment.
If such an acceleration in change does take place, then by 1985 a delay of one year will be equivalent to a delay in 1790 of about ten years. It will be essential to cut the time required to get new programs through a budget cycle which now takes at least three years.
Certain key words in this listing of the Coast Guard’s missions are here italicized because they suggest the Coast Guard’s future: (1) To minimize loss of life, personal injury, and property damage, on, over, and under the high seas and waters subject to U. S. jurisdiction; (2) to facilitate waterborne activity in support of national economic, scientific, and social needs; (3) to maintain an effective, ready armed force prepared for and immediately responsive to specific tasks in time of war or emergency; (4) to assure the safety and security of vessels, and of ports and waterways and their related shore facilities; (5) to enforce federal laws and the provisions of international agreements on and under waters subject to U. S. jurisdiction and on and under the high seas, where authorized; and (6) to maintain or improve the quality of the marine environment.
By facilitate is meant to make easier the act of transporting cargo and passengers. This implies the reduction of cost by such means as reducing time of transit, reducing breakage and spoilage, reducing damage to ecology, and reducing interference with recreation. Much Coast Guard effort is now devoted to this end and an even greater proportion of its resources will be devoted to it in the future.
Heretofore, immediacy of response in peacetime has pertained only to active-duty Coast Guardsmen: only in war or national emergency were Coast Guard Reservists obliged to respond immediately. New programs will demand that, even in peacetime, Reservists respond immediately both to such disasters as floods, hurricanes, and oil spills, and to recall for normal duty.
The need for insuring the safety of commercial vessels in the ports of the United States will lead to systems by which ship movements in narrow waters will be monitored and, if necessary, directed. One-way traffic lanes will be established.
Federal laws governing conditions under waters subject to U. S. jurisdiction will have to be enforced. Underwater apparatus and vehicles will have to be regulated in order to preserve the marine environment and the natural resources under the sea and on the ocean floor.
Offshore oil rigs, now so numerous in the Gulf of Mexico, will require close supervision: their underwater portions and their appendages will have to be inspected. As the number of these platforms increases, fairways between them will become more important.
The laying of pipelines from offshore terminals will have to be supervised by a federal agency that has both the authority and the ability to inspect the construction on site. The Coast Guard will be the logical agency.
As Coast Guard involvement in these matters increases, so will the need for cooperation with other federal, state, and local agencies. Some of the work of inspection which the Coast Guard is now capable of performing with its own people may be delegated to non-government organizations. Perhaps this is the only way the Coast Guard will be able to respond to the increased responsibility which it must assume, but for which it will not get a commensurate budgetary increase.
Administering the Service
Management by exception will become much more important. Computer programs will make it possible to identify the unusual situation in almost any area, and our people will then be able to focus their attention on those cases.
In 1962 a test was run at Coast Guard Headquarters to see whether a computer could satisfactorily identify twenty aviators for assignment to twenty vacant billets. The computer assignments were then compared with those the same officers' detailer would have made "manually." Even though the computer-produced assignments were not used, they were considered reasonable and acceptable.
The test generated some startling reactions. There were indignation and some apprehension that anyone should even consider allowing a computer to "decide" officer's assignment. No doubt this reaction stemmed largely from unfamiliarity with the capabilities and limitations of computers. Nowadays such unfamiliarity is rare, and we use computer-produced information to assist in making decisions in all areas.
Having accepted the computer as a tool to hasten the processing of information, we must next adopt a new philosophy for its use, because the writing of problem-free programs is costly. There are thousands of computer solutions to thousands of problems, and more are being produced by the hour. Programmed solutions are available from companies, universities, and government agencies. Their existence is widely known and in such fields as business, statistics, psychology, and engineering, to name but a few. Other programs are being developed by government agencies to perform complex analyses of budgets, of building requirements, and of personnel assignments. In the Coast Guard, computer programs are already being used to analyze search and rescue readiness and the availability of merchant vessels to assist others in distress.
From now on we will place less emphasis on writing new programs, and more on adapting existing programs to Coast Guard needs. This will not be easy because it will be necessary to use the other fellow's method. However, the potential for saving is significant since the tendency to "re-invent the wheel" will be eliminated. Furthermore, our computers will be freed for use in refining and analyzing the information thoroughly and even in initiating certain actions. Some examples will be given in the discussion of future search and rescue techniques.
The computer has made it possible to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of Coast Guard activities and to compare them with alternative activities which may or may not be in use at the same time. Each year such activities as search and rescue, marine inspection, boating safety, and aids to navigation compete for money from the budget. More quantitative methods will be developed to insure that funds granted an activity will yield the most valuable returns for our clientele. Programs will be written to permit the computer to simulate any Coast Guard operation in such a way that, by adding specific amounts of money or numbers of people, the cost of each improvement can be identified. Such simulations will become cheaper and more reliable as time goes by. Eventually all Coast Guard program managers will adopt simulation techniques for analyzing their own performance.
Data-processing itself will be speeded up, and its cost will be reduced greatly by new methods of recording data on forms or cards that will be read directly by the computer, thus eliminating the need for key punching new cards or tapes. Records of members of the Coast Guard Reserve are already being coded on cards which are manually punched by the Reservists or by a yeoman when they attend meetings. These cards are read directly by the computer which reports the number of hours of active duty for training the members have performed.
Turning to our shore establishment, we will find it more and more difficult to maintain the far-flung system of stations, bases, and airfields with the amount of money and the number of people we anticipate in the future.
Many of our bases are located at Department of Defense installations in order to economize by taking advantage of fixed overhead such as firefighting forces, theaters, schools, commissaries, runways, and, of course, to allow us to establish ourselves with a minimum of legal effort. Many of our operating overhead costs, such as runway maintenance, dock upkeep, sewage systems, and even ferries (as was the case at Ellis Island in 1951), are borne by the host. The government as a whole does make real savings, even if the host does not. But sometimes the host’s need for the installation diminishes or even disappears, while ours increases. At other times defense cutbacks eliminate the host installations and we are left to maintain the whole base or that part of it we need with our own funds. Usually the cutback occurs too late for us to obtain additional funds through the budgetary process. In these cases three choices are open to us: to re-allocate funds from other operations, to move to another location, or to close our facility. Rarely are any of these alternatives satisfactory. For example, when the Navy’s base at Kodiak, Alaska, was decommissioned recently, the Coast Guard, after agonizing over the three alternatives, decided on the first, and a massive infusion of money from other operations had to be applied in order to assume all the overhead costs which the Navy had been paying.
The future will see the Coast Guard taking the more practical stand of seeking funds in its own budget to pay its share of the overhead from the time it moves into a shared installation. This will not only keep the Coast Guard less dependent upon its hosts, but will permit the host to demonstrate a more economical operation at shared bases.
Building for Change
In the past, shore structures have been built to last fifty to one hundred years. The beaches of the United States are dotted with dwellings and buildings once used by the Coast Guard as lifeboat stations, now made obsolete by technological advance. Such obsolescence will be anticipated in order to minimize its cost, and many new structures will be temporary ones. Some of them will be so designed that they can easily be put to other uses; others will be mobile.
Clues to such a shift have already appeared, as the Coast Guard has been forced to establish quarters on houseboats and in mobile homes. Less emphasis will be placed on the construction of permanent barracks. Mess halls will be built to accommodate fewer, not more, people, and even the program to build quarters for families will soon see its high-water mark, as it becomes advantageous for married Coast Guardsmen to be homeowners in order to protect their savings against inflationary increases in the price of real estate.
Planning for Stability
Having this desire to own a home, more of our people will press for long, or recurring, assignments to a particular town or area. The "homesteader” concept, which tends to make people want to remain in one place for six, eight, or more years, has been looked upon with disfavor by some in the Coast Guard. This will become less of a stigma.
In return for being permitted stability, the people will be expected to become more experienced and effective performers.
Charging the User
User charges are fees the government charges an individual or group for services rendered. They are analogous to the fees that one pays for the services of a physician, a barber, or an accountant. The basic philosophy behind user charges is that when an individual or industry receives special services from the government he or they should pay their cost.
For years user charges have been repugnant to Coast Guard officers because our view of ourselves as humanitarians and the will of Congress have insured that these services were performed free of charge. The fact that many of our duties now are involved in the economics of transportation will dictate a change. There now are only a few user charges for such things as license documents, but serious consideration will be given to assessing charges for the use of waterways, for the operation or maintenance of vessel-traffic systems, and for general navigation aids. Since recreational boating continues to create the largest demand for search and rescue services, and for the administration of the new boating laws, it too will come under close scrutiny for the application of user charges.
There will be a new approach to Coast Guard legal problems. Increasing emphasis will be placed upon the formulation of new laws and regulations intended to achieve the objectives for which the Coast Guard has a responsibility.
Many of the present laws include sanctions which no longer are effective deterrents. The monetary penal ties intended to discourage violation do not do so because the economic gain from committing a violation far overshadows the penalty of being caught.
One example is Section II of the Water Quality Improvement Act which was passed in 1970. This requires that all vessels of over 300 gross tons using any port or place in U. S. waters establish evidence of financial responsibility of $100 per gross ton, or $14,000,000, whichever is the lesser.
Given the influence of inflation, the effective degree of financial responsibility for such vessels will decline progressively. As the effective degree of financial responsibility declines, the Act's value as a deterrent to the pollution of the marine environment will also decline.
In order to permit the updating of laws and regulations, the services of many more lawyers will be required.
Employing the Reserve
A few years ago a Reserve force of 20,000 was maintained to provide a manpower pool for call-up solely during armed conflict. Interestingly, there has never been any reserve for Coast Guard aviation. The Reserve force, which was given schooling or duty on-board reserve training vessels, was trained basically for general shipboard services or for port security work and was usually prohibited from augmenting the regular forces.
But the costs rose and the projected price tag was higher than those in charge of the budget were prepared for the country to pay. The President ordered a cut and the authorized strength has been reduced to 11,800 officers and men. This has trimmed the cost considerably.
Most of our duties in war are an extension of our peacetime duties. Hence, the Coast Guard is taking a hard look at its Reserve training and readiness. A policy to use the Reserve during national disasters has taken shape. Reservists are also being used to man at times of peak load stations which otherwise would remain closed. Happily, most peak loads come in the summer when Reservists are available. Last summer three stations on the Great Lakes were reopened for the boating season and completely manned by the Reserve: these were at Manistee, Michigan, and Plum Island, Wisconsin, both on Lake Michigan; and Harbor Beach, Michigan, on Lake Huron.
Helping to contain and clean up massive oil spills is another activity of the Coast Guard that has times of peak loads. These situations can occur at any time and when they do, they require many people, though only for a brief time. Reservists have been used for such duty in the past and the Coast Guard will plan to use them to an even greater extent in the future. Training obtained through such experience is much more valuable and satisfying to the individual who participates than are drill-hall routines; and Reservists have reacted enthusiastically to this new plan. Future Reservists will see this on-the-job training policy expanded widely to other programs as well. The Coast Guard will come to rely heavily on the Reserve to increase overall operational effectiveness. Perhaps what is best, the individual will be more interested in enlisting in a reserve that offers an opportunity to perform important jobs at the same time he is training.
Improving the Efficiency
The waterways of the United States afford the shipper the most inexpensive means of transporting bulk cargo today. Barge traffic on our inland waterways will continue to grow, and container ships, sea barge vessels, and LASH (Lighter Aboard Ships) types will increase in number. Coastwise traffic (using tug-barges) will increase. The most dramatic increase will probably occur from the terminus of the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline in Valdez to U. S. ports of the "lower 48” where barges and tankers will be required to move oil to U. S. ports.
Even though aircraft will carry such highly valued cargoes as gems and first-class mail, it is reasonable to anticipate that most break-bulk cargo will still go by sea (but in containers or barges carried on board ship, rather than in individual crates and packages). For the movement of bulk cargoes, high speed will not be required and there will probably be no justification for building ships capable of moving at more than present-day speeds.
Efforts to improve the efficiency of marine transportation will focus on terminals. Analysis reveals that almost one-third of the cost of importing or exporting cargo by water is incurred between the ship and the next means of transportation—a distance not usually exceeding a few hundred feet. No doubt, new techniques and new equipment will develop, as measures are taken to reduce these costs.
Within the Department of Transportation one agency is expected to take responsibility for economic and safety matters concerning each transportation medium or mode. For example, for air transportation there is the Federal Aviation Administration, and for rail transportation there is the Federal Railroad Administration. For water transportation, however, responsibility is split: safety is primarily the responsibility of the Coast Guard, while economics is generally the responsibility of the Maritime Administration, which, oddly, is not within the Department of Transportation, but in that of Commerce. Nevertheless, because the Coast Guard represents the Department of Transportation in nautical matters and is consequently involved in marine administration, it will have to address economic considerations on port and terminal operations more frequently than before. Since the Maritime Administration also has a primary interest in fostering maritime trade, it will be working on similar problems.
Steps will be taken eventually to transfer the Maritime Administration either into the Department of Transportation or into a new department. In fact, a proposal to reorganize the federal departments includes the creation of a Department of Economic Affairs, in which the Maritime Administration would be side by side with the Coast Guard. Be that as it may, when this transfer occurs, the duties of both the Coast Guard and the Maritime Administration will be reviewed and some may be exchanged in order to remove overlap. Although a merger of the two agencies is possible, it would seem more likely that they will both keep their identity.
Working Under the Surface
The increased price of fish will encourage the fishing industries to expand the catch by investing in new vessels and gear. Sonar presently assists in locating schools of fish, and the next step may be to have a visual capability. Underwater television cameras already available for other purposes may appear on the more advanced boats.
Despite predictions, commercial underwater activity has not increased dramatically in the past four years. Rather, there has been a long recession for those who built and operated commercial undersea craft. But this now appears to be only a pause. Undersea drilling is creating a demand for the services of those small submersibles now available. Skin divers will also spark the increase in underwater activity. As their numbers increase, so will the sophistication of the equipment they use. Gradually more and more semi-enclosed under water vehicles will become available. These will be the forerunners of the true recreational submarine. Commercial and recreational submersibles will need navigation systems, communications systems and rescue systems.
The Coast Guard has no submarine rescue capability The Navy, of course, maintains rescue vessels and equipment for its fleet, and this is frequently made available in cases of civilian distress. But naval rescue equipment, which is designed for combatant submarines, is seldom compatible with needs for the rescue of civilian submersible craft, and there is no guarantee that it ever will be. The fact that the Navy's business is defense will eventually compel the Coast Guard to provide the tools, equipment, and manpower to organize and operate an effective system for the undersea rescue of civilians and their various undersea craft.
Other commercial vessels will be designed and equipped to harvest high-protein materials from the sea in such forms as plankton and seaweed. Serious tempts will probably be made to grow and harvest at and to expand the cultivation of crustaceans. This will result in certain ocean areas being designated for such uses and, possibly, prohibited to operations known to interfere with these activities. The enforcement of such designated ocean areas will be a responsibility of the Coast Guard.
The extraction of minerals from the ocean bottom will also begin to develop as an industry. Indeed, it has already begun—witness Howard Hughes' new Hughes Glomar Explorer, which "mines" manganese nodules from the bottom of the Pacific. Some new types of vessels will use dredging techniques at first. Later, other techniques of mining of the ocean bottom will be adopted.
These diversified marine occupations will require regulation by the Coast Guard Office of Merchant Vessel Safety. Faced with the choice of either training new people or hiring those already trained in these fields, the Coast Guard may decide to delegate center inspections to other organizations with qualified personnel. Although the Coast Guard will retain the function of setting standards, it may be forced to authorize civilian organizations to perform certifications of compliance with its standards. Owners of vessels to be inspected might be required to pay for their inspections and the fees charged could be used to reimburse the organization performing the inspection. With much routine direct inspection and certification work removed from its shoulders, the Coast Guard would be able to place its emphasis on problem areas. An extremely sophisticated feedback loop, controlled by the Coast Guard and consisting of a Coast Guard mechanism for setting standards, requirements for preventive maintenance, and manufacturers' warranties on equipment, may then be developed. Feedback, including casualty analysis information, would be used to make changes.
Rescuing the Distressed
That there is still danger in going to sea is attested by the fact that, on the average, once a day, somewhere in the world, a seagoing ship of 1,000 tons or more is lost. With the advent of larger ships, better designs, higher construction standards, and greater sophistication of navigational systems, the newer ships will be in less danger from damage by the elements or from human error. But, as the Andrea Doria, the Torrey Canyon, and many another modern ship has proved, ships still sink, strand, and burn—one every day.
Comparing all large-vessel distresses with all those involving craft of, say, 75 feet in length and under, we found the total number of people and dollars involved in each group of casualties was about the same.
The search and rescue procedures of the old Life Saving Service (which in 1915 became a part of the Coast Guard) included maintenance of lookouts along beaches where shipwrecks often occurred. When a vessel in distress was sighted, the alarm was given and rescue attempts commenced from the beach. Also in the 1830s, revenue cutters began to cruise along the coast in winter to assist vessels in distress.
Until 1958 a large proportion of the distress cases answered by Coast Guard vessels occurred more than fifty miles at sea. Today, more than 90 per cent of all assistance provided by the Coast Guard is within fifty miles of the coast. There are two main reasons for this change. First, in 1958 the Automated Mutual Assistance Vessel Rescue (AmvER) system, which directs those merchant vessels nearest a case of distress to proceed to the rescue, came into being. Second, U. S. participation in the program of ocean station vessels, manned by the Coast Guard, is nearly over and is scheduled to end completely in July 1974, leaving fewer Coast Guard cutters available to respond on scene. The cutters used in the latter program were responsible for many rescues while they were on station or en route to and from their stations.
Now, although we have cutters standing by to assist in cases of distress more than fifty miles from our shores, rely heavily on the many merchant vessels at sea to lend assistance. Messages that provide the position of the distressed vessel and the nature of the difficulty are received by radio and processed at any rescue coordination center. The AMVER computer, located in Washington, D.C., receives these data and determines the names and positions of the nearest other vessels. Using this information, Coast Guard officers plan and direct the rescue operation by requesting those vessels to go to the scene and, when necessary, by sending Coast Guard vessels or aircraft. In the case of a lost or overdue vessel or plane, search plans include a computerized determination of the most probable position, together with a recommended search area.
Earth satellites may soon be used to relay distress signals. The positions of vessels would be calculated automatically; previously prepared and recorded messages and instructions selected on the basis of the type of distress and the weather would be sent to the vessel nearest the scene. Search patterns and other instructions would be issued automatically. Consequently, the officers and men who man the rescue coordination centers would have responsibility primarily for checking the procedure for errors. Considerable time would be saved and, since in search and rescue cases time is the most valuable asset, many lives would be saved that otherwise would be lost.
Further, satellites will soon be tested for use in position-fixing. New systems, such as Distress Alerting Systems (DALS) and Global Rescue Alarm Network (GRAN), are being developed to permit the automatic transmission of signals by inexpensive transmitters no bigger than three cigarette packs. These systems would be invaluable to a vessel that had lost her ability to transmit a conventional radio message.
Although today merchant vessels are both willing and able to go to the assistance of their fellows in distress, they may soon be so highly automated that there will not be enough people on board both to navigate their ship and lend assistance on the scene. At that time Coast Guard vessels will have to respond to more calls for assistance than they have recently, and the seagoing fleet will increase to insure adequate response.
Eventually a new class of high-endurance cutter will be needed to replace the now very old Campbell class. As we have seen, there will be a need for this new class of ships to provide offshore search and rescue capability. They will also engage in law enforcement on the high seas.
Most search and rescue cases are handled within the resources of a single Coast Guard District. However, in some cases the resources of more than one District must be brought into use. When this is so, Commander Atlantic Area or Commander Pacific Area coordinates the case and assigns facilities as necessary. The years to come will see expansion of the organization of the Atlantic and Pacific areas to include another rear admiral on each staff; in order to relieve the present area commanders of their second responsibility as district commanders.
Enforcing the Law
The area that may well see the most expansion in Coast Guard service in the future is that of law enforcement. The large number of foreign fishing vessels now in Alaskan waters, along the Aleutian Chain, and the East and West coasts, where our own lobstermen and draggers work, means that there will be no letup in American fishermen's gear conflicts with foreign vessels as well as between themselves, which has already made necessary an expanded role for the Coast Guard.
Law enforcement once was seen as a role that could be performed with hydrofoils or air-cushion vehicles. A few years ago, the Coast Guard took three air-cushion vehicles from the Navy and used them, primarily for search and rescue, on a trial basis. Those who operated them were high in praise of their performance, but the vehicles became so expensive to maintain that they were decommissioned. No doubt the Coast Guard will review the use of these craft again in five or six years, because their speed makes them attractive for law enforcement as well as for search and rescue.
In the meantime the Coast Guard seems likely to continue using its high-endurance cutters for enforcing laws, but it will extend their effectiveness by using ship-launched helicopters, backed by sorties of our long-range planes, and shore-based helicopters.
Not only will the United States protect our own fishing grounds from encroachment by others, but U. S. fishing vessels will be watched to prevent them from violating the territorial waters of Latin America. Our fishing vessels off Mexico and Costa Rica are already being watched by Coast Guard long-range patrol planes operating from as far away as Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and San Francisco.
The Japanese fishing fleet has given Coast Guard forces considerable work in preventing incursions along the Aleutian Chain, where salmon, halibut, and king crab are caught. The most notable case involved the CGC Storis which found three Japanese vessels, including a floating cannery, fishing in U. S. territorial waters. The Japanese refusal to halt threatened to create an international incident.
Many countries will unilaterally extend their territorial waters to as much as 200 miles. Many others have already extended their fisheries jurisdiction that far. This requires that confrontations be prevented when American-flag vessels enter extended territorial waters not recognized by the United States. Unfortunately, one can foresee more work in this area, rather than less, in years to come.
Oil rigs will continue to proliferate in the Gulf of Mexico and will become a significant problem off Labrador and the northeast coast of the United States. Along the Gulf Coast, rights to sink oil wells have been granted to the major oil companies. In order to insure safe transit by vessels, fairways have been reserved. Though they are not exceptionally wide, economic pressure may cause them to be narrowed so that further oil exploration and drilling can be permitted. The existence of drilling structures, of offshore terminals for large tankers, and of nuclear-power plants established offshore on barges creates on the high seas a community which will sooner or later have all the social problems of communities ashore or of ships at sea. The prevention of crime, the apprehension of criminals, and the protection of property will certainly create additional work for the Coast Guard, if only in cooperating with state authorities.
Increased drilling will enlarge the potential for environmental damage by oil spills. New surveillance equipment will be developed by the Coast Guard. The Office of Research and Development is now funding efforts to produce airborne sensing equipment to identify oil slicks. No airplane much smaller than the old Grumman HU-16 Albatross will have its desirable multi-mission capability. Nevertheless, single- or dual-mission aircraft will still give us an acceptable capability to perform both our present and our projected missions. As it is, so many of our aircraft missions are search-oriented that we use their other capabilities infrequently. Therefore, on the premise that it is not necessary to drive a tack with a sledge hammer, we will reduce other capabilities in the new class of aircraft and this should result in tremendous savings. Other aircraft with other capabilities then must be deployed only when those features are required. The decision to buy single-mission aircraft will break with the long-established policy of developing all Coast Guard equipment with a multi-mission capability.
The present 180-foot buoy tenders are an excellent example of multi-mission capability. Buoy tending is their main function, but, since they have ice-breaking bows, they sometimes serve as icebreakers. They are also capable of mounting a 3-inch gun, and they carry towing bitts on the fantail. It is difficult to give up the multi-mission concept, but the high cost of new material may have changed the economics of the replacement program for some of the ships and planes.
Using the Satellites
The use of satellites for various Coast Guard programs is under examination to see, among other things, whether a signal originating from a distressed craft can be relayed to shore by satellite and can identify the craft and her position. Since the largest expense connected with search and rescue today is the search, development of such a system would permit enormous savings in time and effort.
Environmental protection is another important field in which satellites might be used. If oil spills and other contaminants in the water could be detected by the use of satellites, detection would occur sooner and the offenders could more often be identified.
Navigation by fixes from satellites is already possible and is used by the Navy. We must find out how soon low-priced transmitters and receivers can be developed for practical commercial use. System reliability and accuracy must also be determined.
Weather satellites can transmit pictures of clouds and land masses; they should also be able to transmit information about ice fields in the Arctic and Antarctic. Because our vessels, including icebreakers, follow the leads, or cracks between the ice floes, as the paths of least resistance, rapid identification by satellite of the direction and extent of these leads would be of great assistance. The cost of such an application must be determined since, if it is to be useful in ice navigation, real-time communications from the satellites will be necessary.
The law-enforcement mission may be greatly assisted if the monitoring of fishing vessels working in areas prohibited by treaty can be done by satellite. Answers must be found to such questions as whether satellites can identify an individual fishing vessel violating a treaty, and whether they can keep track of a craft between the time the violation is spotted and the time a Coast Guard craft comes alongside. Success in this area will probably make for a more effective, though less seagoing, approach to law enforcement.
Should any of these new applications prove practical, the Coast Guard will be in the satellite business by the turn of the century.
8reciking the Ice
The Coast Guard now operates nine icebreakers of which one, the Storis, is small and underpowered, and a second, the Mackinaw, which was built for operation in fresh water, can be used only in the Great Lakes. Of the remaining seven, the Glacier, built in 1955, is the newest. The six "Wind"-class vessels are all approaching, if not past, thirty years of service. Their hulls are constructed of a form of steel that becomes more brittle as the temperature sinks, a fact that was learned only as the state of the metallurgical art progressed after their launching.
The Coast Guard’s 1971 budget for construction and acquisition, which amounted to ninety million dollars, included sixty million for a new icebreaker. This ship, the Polar Star, is expected to be in operation in 1975 and to be followed in 1976 by a sister. Two more icebreakers are needed to complete the replacement program. By 1976 four of the six "Wind”-class vessels are expected to have been decommissioned and, since the construction timetable for the four new ships will span nine years at least, the United States will be left with a serious shortage of icebreakers for several years.
The services of these ships are measured in "icebreaker days.” Each of the five large icebreakers now provides 180 icebreaker days per year, which makes 900 icebreaker days available. The number of days a ship is away from home port usually has been limited by the crew’s endurance, rather than by the ship’s. But as they have grown old, the icebreakers have suffered material casualties with increasing frequency. A few years ago the Northwind, once the pride of the Coast Guard fleet, was forced to fall out of company of the SS Manhattan and the Canadian Coast Guard’s icebreaker John A. MacDonald on their epic voyage through the Northwest Passage. Engineering casualties were the cause of her humiliation. The reliability of these old vessels is now so poor that it may not be possible for them to achieve the level of 180 operating days. While waiting for the new ships, the Coast Guard has sent two of the old vessels, the Northwind and the Westwind, to the shipyard for re-engining in order to extend their useful lives by approximately five years each. The new engines will provide 10,000 horsepower, and the old hulls and other components will then become the factors limiting or denying the ships’ use beyond the five-year period.
The new ships should have no trouble operating 240 to 270 days per year if the same men don’t have to be aboard all the time. Therefore, a plan is being considered to assign crews of 150 per cent of normal complement, so that part of the ship’s company can always be on leave or assigned to shore duty in the ship’s home port. In this fashion, four of the new ships plus the Glacier can be expected to perform services equivalent to the seven icebreakers now in service. But even these measures will not forestall a serious shortage of icebreaker days in 1976 when only the Northwind, Westwind, Glacier, and Polar Star will be in service. Although demands for icebreaking are expected to grow, the program to fund two additional breakers may find itself in great difficulty.
New icebreaking needs have developed in the Great Lakes, in Cook Inlet, and the North Slope of Alaska, where offshore activity requires regular Coast Guard support for aids to navigation and search and rescue duties, in addition to the escort and logistics tasks already being performed by our icebreakers. Shallow- draft icebreakers with about the capability of the present "Wind” class would be suitable for these three areas. As the energy crisis becomes more acute, the need for these ships will become urgent. In fact, justification could be provided immediately for at least two of these shallow-draft icebreakers. Forecasts project the development of a nuclear reactor which by 1980 will be able to power a vessel of at least 40,000 horsepower more economically than can fossil fuel. It will be time to replace the 21,000 horsepower Glacier shortly after 1980 and, since a breaker of more than 40,000 horsepower will be needed, there is every reason to believe that her replacement will be the Coast Guard s first nuclear icebreaker.
In addition to these changes and the increased activity of the Coast Guard in the Arctic, there will be greater need for ice forecasts and reports of local ice conditions, which, as we have seen, probably will be reported by satellite. It will become evident that responsibility for the collection and dissemination of such information should be vested in the Department of Transportation and administered by the Coast Guard, and this will eventually become a new Coast Guard function.
Employing the People
Old projections of an annual increase in the number of officers and enlisted men have been cut as a result of economic factors and the lifting of the draft. Annual increases of about two per cent for officers and less than one per cent for enlisted men are what we can expect for the next few years. But our ability to accomplish our missions will have to increase more rapidly than will the number of people to carry them out. Women will comprise an increasing proportion of our total number. The Coast Guard will enlist more than three hundred women and commission about fifty others into the regular establishment in the next three years.
As in other areas of American life, business will be on a first-name basis as more and more enlisted men and women will be recognized as specialists performing jobs that require high skills or high levels of knowledge. The move to a uniform common to both officers and enlisted men is but one indication of this trend. A more sophisticated way of handling personnel is under development. The system for assigning our enlisted personnel is finally being centralized at headquarters. Assignment personnel will soon be computer-assisted; that is to say, computers will match slates of officers and men due for transfer with billets available, on the basis on an individual's past duty, length of service, distance to be moved, and many other factors which the detailer now tries to juggle in his head.
Officers, particularly those in the grade of lieutenant commander and above, will be given greatly increased training in the fields of management and administration.
The enormous pool of talent in the Coast Guard Auxiliary will be relied upon heavily and its volunteer help will be used much more extensively than before. The Auxiliary, a civilian organization made up of pleasure boatmen, was organized by Congress to assist the regular Coast Guard in promoting boating safety. Now numbering about 40,000 members, its ranks are expected to increase to as many as 100,000 during the next three decades. Presently its main functions are to give courses in boating safety and to perform courtesy examinations to insure that boats are equipped for safe operation and are in compliance with the law.
The Coast Guard will extend greatly its administrative support of the Auxiliary. Members of the Auxiliary may well serve in Boating Safety Detachments (BOSDETs), about which more later. As we saw earlier, the Coast Guard Reserve will provide much additional manpower at peak workload times and places, and civilians will be employed to a greater extent than ever for the execution of many tasks requiring special technical skills and continuity. Key civilians will become more closely integrated than before into the Coast Guard organization at all levels.
Helping the Navy
A reasonable question is "What special seagoing role will the Coast Guard perform in another war?"
While there will always be certain duties for which Coast Guard forces will plan and assume responsibility, we should never expect exclusive responsibility for a particular seagoing military role in time of war. In general, this will be true as long as the Coast Guard is not an agency of the Department of Defense. While the Navy and Marine Corps must train mainly for operations that will arise in time of war or national emergency, the Coast Guard must direct most of its effort toward the execution of its six peacetime objectives. Although the Coast Guard anticipates and plans for its wartime role, many of the calls that have been made upon it have resulted from situations not anticipated by the defense establishment, but for which Coast Guard training and material have been uniquely suited.
Our World War II efforts included the operation of landing craft in such invasions as those of Sicily, Normandy, and the Pacific islands, and antisubmarine warfare or, rather, the protection of shipping. The Coast Guard performed notably in the latter role, especially, but not exclusively, in the Atlantic. Vietnam found the Service participating in Operation Market Time, in which both small craft and major cutters acted to block the seaborne flow of supplies and men to the Viet Cong. The major cutters also performed shore bombardment and provided a wide range of support for small Coast Guard and Navy craft.
Nowadays the 378-foot cutters have sonar and antisubmarine weapons, but the much smaller, medium-endurance cutters do not. While the Coast Guard, with its extensive small-boat experience, did fill a void in amphibious warfare during the early part of World War II, long before the end of that war the Navy had taken care to provide its own forces for that mission. In the case of antisubmarine warfare, the Coast Guard simply augmented an already existing but insufficient naval capability (just as it did in World War I, when such warfare was new to both Services). That ASW role is still anticipated for the Coast Guard, especially now that the Navy is forced to reduce the number of ships in the fleet. Further, the normal capabilities of the Coast Guard would point strongly to both coastal and deep-sea search and rescue missions during general hostilities. Those wartime duties are carried out by the Coast Guard in order to give the Navy time to increase the number of its own people, and strengthen its own equipment and special skills to perform the same functions, but port security is a mission that is always the responsibility of the Coast Guard. At the end of each conflict the Coast Guard has returned to its peacetime pursuits, leaving the business of defense to the Navy and the other Armed Forces. The guidelines that govern Coast Guard employment in a war will continue as follows: First, that any task proposed will involve a service that must be carried out during the emergency. Second, that, unless forces are assigned to insure the task’s accomplishment, it may be disrupted by enemy action. Third, that the Coast Guard will be able to acquire or devote sufficient suitable resources to insure that the task in question will be performed successfully.
Protecting the Ports
Two duties that clearly will be wartime as well as peacetime responsibilities of the Coast Guard are port safety and port security.
Port safety has evolved from the older concept of port security, which for years has been a Coast Guard responsibility. Immediately after World War II there was a possibility that weapons might be smuggled into the country by vessels of hostile countries. As the years passed, the development of the intercontinental ballistic missile reduced the likelihood of clandestine introduction of atomic, biological, or chemical weapons into our port and harbor areas. Now a new, civilian threat of friendly origin has appeared in the form of bulk shipments of such hazardous cargoes as chlorine, liquefied natural gas, and anhydrous ammonia. In many instances the threat begins when these cargoes leave factories within the United States and travel across the country to a port for transfer to barge, tanker, or freighter. Barges loaded with chemicals have broken loose, have collided with bridges, have been caught in spillways, and have sunk. The Ports and Waterways Act of 1972 gives the Coast Guard regulatory power over such cargoes and it has become the responsibility of the Coast Guard to insure that no catastrophic occurrences result from such movements.
A real time system for identifying and locating hazardous cargoes as they move from point to point is needed. Movements of some dangerous cargoes, such as high explosives, are already closely monitored by the Coast Guard. The Army Corps of Engineers records other cargo movement through the ports, but it does so for other purposes and can only produce information about cargoes three months or more after they have come and gone. (There are also certain restrictions on access to the information compiled by the Army corps of Engineers, because it is proprietary in nature.) Therefore there can be no certainty that two vessels meeting in restricted waters are not carrying hazardous cargoes. The consequence of a collision between two such vessels in mind-boggling. Yet there is a significant possibility that such collisions will occur. These situations and the attendant combination of results and probabilities are called "credible accidents." When a system for reporting the movement of all cargoes is established, a system for traffic evaluation will be needed in both rivers and harbors. When the movement of all vessels, not just those known to be carrying hazardous cargoes, has been regulated, the possibility of groundings and collisions attendant upon the movement of hazardous cargoes will be reduced.
A recent study helped determine which American ports need vessel-traffic systems. Systems now exist in San Francisco and Seattle. Money to establish such systems in New York and New Orleans is in the current budget; later, systems will be requested for other ports. The simplest system for the regulation of traffic may consist of bridge-to-bridge radio-telephone communications and visual or audio traffic signals. Some ports may require the use of vessel-traffic lanes and radar-computer consoles such as those used by air-traffic controllers at airports. As offshore terminals are established, traffic-control systems within the lanes of approach to these terminals will be required and will become the responsibility of the Coast Guard.
The Coast Guard will take a more active role than it has in the past in deciding which navigational charts need updating and in determining the resurvey cycle of areas involving approaches to offshore terminals and traffic lanes used by deep-draft vessels.
In the case of war or national emergency, the new system of traffic control will be extremely important. For example, priorities will be placed on the movement of vessels according to the commodities they carry, and their importance to the defense effort.
Saving the Pleasure Boatman
A fairly recent projection of past growth indicates that the number of pleasure boats will quadruple in the next twenty years. However, the statistic upon which this projection is based was made up largely of outboard motorboats, and the energy crisis will seriously curtail their operation. This means that the fourfold expansion will not be realized. Even sailboats are affected since most of them are built of fiberglass, of which a component (one step removed) is petroleum.
In order to reduce the number of calls for assistance that are directly attributable to lack of training and experience, new laws will require the testing and licensing of pleasure-boat operators. Eventually, they will also establish an age below which a person will be prohibited from operating a power boat, and a size—about 26 feet—above which persons under 16 will be prohibited from operating a sailboat.
But neither the licensing of small-boat operators nor the regulations concerning age will cure all the problems caused by lack of judgment. Some of the most costly searches ever conducted developed as a result of individuals or groups trying to make unique and frequently foolhardy trips in unseaworthy vessels. There was the case of a man who set out from the United States to sail to Bermuda in a 16-foot outboard boat. Although he had been warned against the venture, when he was reported overdue the Coast Guard had to carry out a search that cost the taxpayers many tens of thousands of dollars. He never was found.
In spite of the fact that such ventures commit the government to the expenditure of large sums of money and quantities of fuel if searches become necessary, the ventures cannot be prevented by the Coast Guard. For economic reasons, the Coast Guard may soon be forced either to prohibit such trips or to advise the participants that searches will not be undertaken at the expense of the government, should their craft meet with trouble. It is possible that, before setting sail, the party in question will be required to post a bond to cover the expense of any search for him. Legislation that would block such foolhardy ventures as the one described is being proposed.
The enormous growth of pleasure boating and yachting has had some influence on our policies toward readiness. Specifically, it has affected our stations that have 30- and 40-foot patrol boats. Until 1968 we attempted to keep those boats in readiness to answer 100 per cent of requests for assistance. In order to be prepared to answer all calls without delay, our boat crews were required to be on duty or on standby more than 100 hours per week. In most cases, these standby postures were maintained at the same level winter and summer, weekend and weekday, day and night, even though the probability of more than one case occurring simultaneously might be negligible. Obviously, that high state of readiness permitted all responses to be made without delay, regardless of the nature of the assistance needed. Thus, a boat out of gas but in no immediate danger produced the same quick response from the Coast Guard as did a boat on fire or one reported to be sinking. It was found that most fatalities would not have been prevented if the time of response had been less: rather, in most cases, response could have been slower without incurring further loss of lives. Consequently, the Coast Guard decided to adopt a level of readiness that would permit 97 per cent of all cases, including all serious ones, to be answered without delay. The three per cent that would be delayed would be given priority according to the urgency of the situation.
This small change in readiness permitted the Coast Guard to reduce the work week of the men at the stations from 115 or 120 hours per week to about 80 or 90 hours. Steps have since been taken to increase the manning levels as well, in order to bring working hours down to around 60 per week. In places where the growth in pleasure boating has been particularly significant the Coast Guard will have to increase the number of men and the amount of equipment in order to maintain the same degree of readiness. But it is unlikely that the men even of these units will ever be expected to resume the longer work week.
Most lights and light stations have been automated so that men need no longer be assigned to them. Some of the men so released, as well as those from cutters decommissioned following the end of the ocean station program, will be reassigned to Boating Safety Detachments. These detachments provide Coast Guardsmen to teach safe-boating practices on inland waters where there is a lot of boating. They visit such places as the Finger Lakes in New York, the multitude of lakes in Minnesota, and many other watery places. A team, usually comprised of three enlisted men headed by a Chief or First Class Boatswain’s Mate, travels within an assigned geographical area, carrying with it a Coast Guard boat on a trailer. These men spend most of their time in boating education, but they do board and inspect pleasure boats to see that they comply with equipment standards. If the team happens to be on the scene of a mishap, it conducts search and rescue operations. The Coast Guard presence helps to persuade boatmen that laws and safe-boating rules should be observed.
This aspect of safe-boating duties can be expected to expand over the next ten to twenty years.
Navigating in the Coastal Confluence Region
Before long most steel buoys will have been replaced by plastic ones; some large steel buoys will be kept for offshore work. The Coast Guard will expand its support for big weather buoys and other floating platforms in cooperation with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency. The buoy-tender fleet will be augmented by at least four vessels larger than any tenders now in service and will be equipped to handle and service these buoys. Some offshore buoys may be big enough to receive helicopters for routine servicing visits.
A national navigation plan recently published by the Department of Transportation discusses the need for a precise navigational system in the coastal confluence region of the United States. This region is defined by the Coast Guard as the waters extending from the U. S. mainland shore either to a point where the depth of water is 100 fathoms or to a distance of fifty miles, whichever is greater. It was hoped that one system of navigation would be able to serve all users in that area, but it now appears that no single system capable of satisfying all users will be practicable in the foreseeable future.
With the advent of enormous vessels carrying great amounts of hazardous cargo, the danger of ecological damage from collisions and groundings has increased greatly. Sea lanes are being set up to insure that traffic will pass safely, but ships must have a navigation system available that will permit them to determine their position with accuracy.
The Office of Research and Development is exploring the practicality of various new coastal and inshore navigation systems, one of which is known informally as "follow the wire." Simply put, a cable placed along the bottom of a channel or navigation lane emits electromagnetic signals that can be picked up by a vessel traversing the channel. The theory is that these signals will help a ship—which could be a submerged commercial submersible—to stay within the limits of the channel, because when it begins to move away from tithe source of the signals being emitted on the channel floor, that fact will be indicated.
The supertankers that will be approaching our offshore terminals will have drafts of 90 feet or more. Charts in use now were prepared for the navigation of vessels whose drafts were no greater than 35 feet, and their use by deep-draft vessels cannot be considered a safe practice. The positions of shoals, wrecks, and other obstructions in depth of water greater than, say, 60 feet were not considered critical. Before the deep-draft vessels can be navigated safely in the coastal confluence waters of the United States a precise system of navigation must be available for three reasons: first, to permit the accurate charting of shoals and wrecks dangerous to deep-draft vessels; second, to permit the accurate marking of these dangers; and third, to permit all vessels to determine their positions accurately enough to avoid such obstructions. Omega, Loran C, and Decca are the leading candidates under consideration for use. Satellite navigation will be a very important worldwide navigational system in the 1990s, but it is not presently in contention because it is not available and, if it were, its cost would be high.
A precision navigation system should be in place along the U. S. coast by 1977 or 1978. And, since it will probably take the charting agencies at least eighteen months to survey wedge-shaped approaches to point moors or offshore terminals that can accept the deep-draft tankers, action is required immediately. The Coast Guard is the most logical agency to manage the new coastal confluence precision system of navigation and, in my opinion, Loran C will probably be that system, at least until 1990, the earliest a satellite system can be expected. Omega probably will be adopted as a navigation system to provide high-seas coverage.
The need for a precise system of navigation for rivers and harbors, while real enough, may be met adequately for the time being by the establishment of harbor advisory systems of traffic movement, particularly in the more critical areas.
Concluding the View
In discussing some of the things the Coast Guard has just begun doing, some of the things the Service may soon be doing, and some of the conditions it may be operating under in the near future, I have tried to show what the Coast Guard will probably be like in a few years.
The further into the future we try to peer, the thicker becomes the mist and the more indistinct the aids to our navigation. Indeed, if we are right that changes will occur so rapidly between now and the beginning of the next century as to be comparable to all those that have taken place since 1790, I must confess that I have not answered, because I could not, our opening question: What will the Coast Guard be like in 2000 A.D.? The picture portrays one person’s impression of what it will be like when we are halfway there. Perhaps, when we arrive at that halfway point, the rest of the script can be written.