With the help of a U.S. military-aid package, this past year has been one of profound change for the Barbados Coast Guard. Beginning in February, Willoughby Fort in Bridgetown, home base for the service since 1982, was formally decommissioned and turned into a passenger processing center for visiting yachts and cruise ships. On 14 September, the 25-year-old facility was replaced by Pelican, the new Barbados Coast Guard headquarters at Spring Garden, St. Michael. Concurrent with the commissioning of the Pelican facility, a new 42-meter patrol ship, Leonard C. Banfield, entered Coast Guard service. Constructed by the Dutch shipbuilder Damen, the Banfield will soon be augmented by sister ship Rudyard Lewis, shown here while fitting out in the Netherlands during September. A third unit of the class has been ordered and other vessels, including three 40-foot fast patrol boats, are planned for the fleet as well. In addition to new vessel construction, personnel numbers for the force are being dramatically boosted with a 150-percent increase over the next five years. The service hopes to grow from approximately 100 personnel in 2006 to 250 by 2011 and a Coast Guard reserve force is expected to number 101 people by 2009.
The USS Ohio (SSGN-726), the Navy's first converted Ohio-class nuclear-powered guided missile submarine, left Bremerton, Washington, on 14 October and dove beneath the waves to begin her maiden voyage. Originally commissioned in 1981 as a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, the Ohio and sisters USS Michigan (SSGN-727), USS Florida (SSGN-728), and USS Georgia (SSGN-729) have been converted to carry up to 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles in place of their previous load-out of submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The submarines' forwardmost ballistic missile tubes were altered to serve as diver lock-out chambers. The huge boats are able to carry more than 60 special operations personnel and can operate unmanned underwater vehicles, dry deck shelters, midget submarines, and MK 48 ADCAP torpedoes.
The long drawn-out legal battle over the F2000-class frigates built for Brunei by BAE Systems at Scotstoun shipyard has finally come to a conclusion. Ordered in 1998, the three frigates, Nakhoda Ragam, Bendahara Sakam (shown here), and Jerambak, were completed by 2005, but the Brunei government refused to accept the warships for publicly unspecified reasons. This past summer a deal was reached, and though the details remain confidential, Brunei has apparently accepted ownership of the three ships but has decided to offer them for sale on the international market through the German firm Lurssen. Although there has been no official comment on why the vessels were initially rejected, it has been reported that the frigates, armed with eight Exocet anti-ship missiles and a Sea Wolf vertical-launch surface-to-air missile system, were simply too complicated for the small Southeast Asian navy to operate.
Mr. Wertheim, a defense consultant in the Washington, D.C., area, is the author of The Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World, 15th edition, currently available from the Naval Institute Press at www.usni.org.