Throughout the nation’s illustrious history, originating with Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist No. 12, 27 November 1787, “a few armed vessels, judiciously stationed at entrances to our ports, might at a small expense be made useful sentinels of our laws.” The U.S. Coast Guard has been the nation’s lead agency in our maritime littorals—protecting mariners, enforcing laws, and providing security. The workhorses and persistent presence in this demanding area of responsibility have been a Fleet of littoral vessels, starting with the original revenue cutters, up to and including more recently the Coast Guard patrol-boat fleet.
Envisioning the future capabilities our nation will require in the evolving 21st-century littorals, the Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) commenced a recapitalization of the Island-class patrol boat—now coming to fruition with the launch of the Sentinel-class patrol boat. Our fleet of littoral vessels has served our maritime nation well in the past. But in anticipation of the arrival of the new Sentinel class, you have not seen anything yet.The significance of the patrol boats was never more on display than during the period between 1991 and 1995, when the number of illegal migrants interdicted by the Coast Guard increased dramatically. In 1992, Executive Order 12807 directed the service to “enforce the suspension of the entry of undocumented migrants by interdicting them at sea, and return them to their country of origin or departure.”
Illegal-Migrant and Drug Interdiction
In 1993, Operation Able Manner concentrated Coast Guard patrols in the Windward Passage (the body of water between Haiti and Cuba) to interdict Haitian migrants. The operation continued until a new government was in place in Haiti in 1994. From 1991 to 1995, more than 120,000 migrants from 23 countries were interdicted. The Coast Guard counted on patrol boats to be the true center-of-gravity in the service’s response.
Recognizing the critical role such boats play in our overall range of capabilities, the Coast Guard Foundation recently presented the Seventh District Coast Guard Foundation Award to the USCGC Knight Island (WPB-1348). Engaged in a volatile case 24 miles east of Riviera Beach, Florida, her crew members exhibited their flexibility and adaptability as they transformed from law-enforcement prosecution involving suspected migrant or drug smuggling to search and rescue (SAR).
A 20-foot Sea Craft cuddy cabin-style boat was riding extremely low in the water, and in the early morning hours of 14 June 2011, the people on board started coming topside only to have the boat capsize. As the cutter’s crew monitored the distressed vessel, the cutter’s small boat had been launched and with the assistance of another Coast Guard asset, saved 11 of the 12 occupants, two of them children. This case emphasizes the life-threatening risks thousands of illegal migrants face each year when they take to the sea, and for which the Coast Guard must be “always ready” to respond.
Another example showcased the need for long-range capabilities and performance. In October 2010, the USCGC Edisto (WPB-1313), working 700 nautical miles from homeport off Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, detected and pursued at high speed two suspect pangas, stopping one by using non-lethal ammunition. A subsequent boarding revealed 19 bales of marijuana and one bag of personal-use cocaine on board. Later, working in concert with a Mexican aircraft, the Edisto diligently searched several debris fields, recovering an additional 92 bales of marijuana for a total of 111 bales seized worth $6.5 million.
Breadth of Future Operations
Today, our service faces unprecedented demands, including increased ports, waterways, and coastal-security operations, counterdrug and illegal-migrant interdiction operations, along with national-defense requirements. The vessels of the patrol-boat fleet are stationed from Portland, Maine, to Key West, Florida; from Guam to Homer, Alaska, and in the Persian Gulf. The 110-foot and 87-foot patrol boats are very versatile (although limited by sea height and on-scene endurance), providing exceptional value, flexibility, and effective mission execution, usually operating under the operational command of a district or sector commander. However, the 110s are aging quickly, and the inherent limitations of the smaller 87s underscore the need for the next generation of larger patrol boats.
To meet the 21st-century challenges, DHS and the Coast Guard are now delivering new fast response cutters or FRC Sentinel class (informally known as the 154 because of their length). The FRC was acquired as the first major system following the disaggregation of the former Deepwater contract. The Coast Guard chose to use a parent-craft design to reduce programmatic risk and control costs; the contract is fixed-price.
A closer examination of the FRC underscores the additional capabilities of this new cutter, which surpass those of the previous patrol-boat classes, making its entry into the Fleet even more compelling. Starting with the most basic measure—actual underway time—typically 110s are allocated 1,800 to 2,000 operational underway hours per year. The FRCs will have 2,500 operational hours per year with a projected higher availability rate over the aging 110s. This will become an important capability for SAR, law-enforcement, and living marine resource and marine environmental-protection missions. The cutter has an advertised speed of more than 28 knots, and its design allows these vessels to perform operations at sea, independently, for five days.
Information Dissemination
This cutter is a game-changer in the littorals. Besides the significant increase in operating hours, the FRC deploys a far superior communications suite that will ensure a reliable means of relaying time-critical and law-enforcement-sensitive information to the scene. This will enhance security operations and the coordination needed for boardings or interdictions at sea. As the Coast Guard’s two operational-level commanders, we believe this capability to receive real-time data on-scene will enhance unity of effort, not only within our own service and its air/sea team, but also with partner federal, state, and local agencies. This is an important step forward. Although we have the best-trained crews in the world, the FRC will allow us to address the near-real-time requirements for information that are placed on all levels of the service.
The FRC’s real-time video capability is a significant upgrade compared with the current patrol-boat fleet. By having this capability, coupled with the ability to record law-enforcement actions, tactical commanders up the chain can support the FRC crews as they perform duties as the on-scene commander during extended multi-day SAR responses. During a major case, the district command center can “see” what is occurring, and if additional surface or air assets are needed, it can launch them to aid in a response. The real-time video capability is something previously only accomplished by one of our few large cutters. The overall command, control, communications, and computer (C4) suite is superior to anything currently deployed on a patrol boat. The new system has more capability than what is now on our 40-year-old medium-endurance cutters.
The FRC further has an increase in weapon capability with one remotely operated MK-38 Mod 2 25-mm main gun with full magazine. By operating the weapon remotely, the cutter’s crew is not as exposed to both hostile fire and the elements as it is on the 110s. In addition, this weapon is gyro-stabilized and provides increased accuracy through use of an optical sight.
The FRC should prove economical for the service and the environment through the Coast Guard’s first environmentally green engineering plant (EPA Tier II–certified main diesel engines and ship’s service diesel generators). The machinery plant has redundancy not present in the 110s, including an emergency diesel generator and more C4 intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capability.
The new cutter will fill a critical role in the service’s trident of forces, providing persistent presence in-shore and complementing the roles filled by the national security cutter and the planned offshore patrol craft. The FRC brings so much more capability than the 110s with superior sea-keeping, making every mission safer and increasing crew endurance before extended missions. This class also has exceptionally quick (and safe) stern boat launch and recovery. This capability increases the sea states in which the cutter’s boat can be launched, thus adding to the potential for success against smugglers and those who would do us harm. From our perspective, cutter-based small boats must be launched and recovered quickly and efficiently to stop pursuit of a suspected smuggler and shift seamlessly to higher-priority missions.
The FRC’s ability to launch its small boat quickly is also vital in interdicting illegal migrants, which is both a humanitarian and law-enforcement mission, requiring ability to return or repatriate those interdicted safely. The FRC can hold 150 migrants for 24 hours on the main deck if required. It is not uncommon for a Haitian freighter to have more than 140 migrants dangerously crammed on board attempting to make the hazardous journey to the United States. Those migrants are brought aboard the cutter for their safety, medically evaluated and treated (many times they are weak and dehydrated), and routinely transported back to Haiti.
Other migrant-interdiction patrol areas include the Straits of Florida, and the southwestern maritime border between San Diego and Mexico. Recently, the USCGC Pea Island (WPB-1347), a legacy 110-foot patrol boat, repatriated 52 migrants to Cuba. The increased capability and bow thruster-assisted maneuverability of the FRC will make repatriating migrants to Haiti or Cuba more efficient and safer because of navigational challenges within these ports.
How Many Patrol Vessels?
The timing of these vessels’ entry into the Coast Guard Fleet will add an enhanced level of capability at a critical time for the nation. The current Coast Guard inventory includes 41 110-foot Island-class and 75 87-foot Protector-class patrol boats. As good as the 110s have been, from their collective string of accomplishments such as conducting dramatic SAR operations in the Gulf of Alaska, to countless drug and migrant interdictions in the Mona Passage between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico and off the Florida coast, they are getting old. Built between 1986 and 1992, with an average age of 22 years, they are beyond their designed 20-year life span. The Coast Guard has decided to homeport the first 12 FRCs in two of the busiest Coast Guard operational ports in the Southeast, six each in Miami and Key West. They will primarily operate in the Florida Straits to conduct SAR, counter-drug, and alien-migrant operations. Overall, the service plans to acquire 58 FRCs.
Built within the United States by Bollinger Shipyards, the first FRC was launched at Lockport, Louisiana, on 21 April 2011. FRC number two was launched on 18 August 2011. These new cutters are slated to begin operational testing and evaluation in August 2012. The FRC uses a proven in-service parent craft based on the Damen Stan Patrol 4708 design, meeting American Bureau of Shipping design, build, and class standards, further incorporating the best attributes from the 110s and 87-foot patrol boats which were also built by Bollinger using the parent craft design model
The Coast Guard recently awarded a $179.7 million contract to Bollinger for the production of four more FRCs, bringing the total number under contract to 12. As this article goes to press, FRC hulls 1-3 are in the water and 4-8 are under construction with the contract having options for up to 34 cutters. Based on the capability inherent to this design, the new boats cannot be deployed fast enough for the next generation of Coast Guard leaders to take one of the most versatile platforms in our 221-year history to sea. The entry of the FRCs into the Fleet, which will serve the public nationwide, further emphasizes that the Coast Guard is a vibrant part of our nation’s maritime community, providing services and mission accomplishment that affect all aspects of the maritime transportation system. In addition, the full deployment of the Sentinel-class FRC will underpin the service’s foundation within DHS.
‘A Leap Forward’
The Coast Guard, through congressional support and operational employment of the FRCs, will bring its professional maritime expertise to vital homeland-security and national-security missions in the nation’s littorals. The deployment of the FRC will significantly facilitate how the Coast Guard accomplishes its missions and fulfills its promise to the American public. The fast response cutter is a leap forward and replaces a vessel that has served the Coast Guard and the nation well over the past decades.
While the 110s continue to serve admirably despite having exceeded their service lives, the FRC is a superior vessel capable of assuming the watch for decades to come. Whether patrolling the critical fishing grounds of the Hudson Canyon or enforcing the maritime borders between Texas, Mexico, and transit zones, the FRC will be a staunch protector as the Coast Guard continues to modernize and recapitalize its aging Fleet.
Vice Admiral Brown is the Commander of Coast Guard Pacific Area.
Naming the Sentinels
Making the fast response cutter even more meaningful in the heart of anyone who has ever worn a Coast Guard uniform is that each is named after a Coast Guard enlisted hero. In the case of hull number one, the USCGC Bernard C. Webber (WPC-1101), the service honors the coxswain of motor lifeboat CG-36500 from Station Chatham, Massachusetts. Webber led the rescue of the crew of the stricken tanker Pendleton, which had broken in half during a horrific storm on 18 February 1952 off the coast of Massachusetts. As noted on the Coast Guard historian’s website:
Webber maneuvered the 36-footer under the Pendleton’s stern with expert skill as the tanker’s crew, trapped in the stern section, abandoned the wreck of their ship on a Jacobs ladder into the Coast Guard lifeboat.
Webber and his crew of three, EN3 Andrew Fitzgerald; SN Richard Livesey; and SN Irving Maske, saved 33 of the 34 Pendleton’s crew. All four Coast Guardsmen were awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal for their heroic actions. Their successful rescue operation has been noted as one of the greatest in the history of the U.S. Coast Guard.
Webber joined the Coast Guard in 1946 and rose to the rank of Chief Warrant Officer during a distinguished 20 year military career that included a tour in Vietnam. He was also a veteran of the Merchant Marine during World War II. He crossed the bar in 2009.
Hull number two will be named after Richard Etheridge. The Coast Guard historian’s office notes:
Captain Richard Etheridge, a Union Army veteran, became the first African-American to command a Life-Saving station when the service appointed him as the keeper of the Pea Island Life-Saving Station in North Carolina in 1880. The Revenue Cutter Service officer who recommended his appointment, First Lieutenant Charles F. Shoemaker, noted that Etheridge was “one of the best surfmen on this part of the coast of North Carolina.”
On 11 October 1896, Etheridge’s rigorous training drills proved to be invaluable. The three-masted schooner E. S. Newman was caught in a terrifying storm. En route from Stoningham, Connecticut, to Norfolk, Virginia, the vessel was blown 100 miles south off course and came ashore on the beach, two miles south of the Pea Island station. The storm was so severe that Etheridge had suspended normal beach patrols that day.
But the alert eyes of Surfman Theodore Meekins saw the first distress flare and he immediately notified Etheridge, who gathered his crew and launched the surfboat. Battling the strong tide and sweeping currents, the dedicated lifesavers struggled to make their way to a point opposite the schooner, only to find there was no dry land. The daring, quick-witted Etheridge tied two of his strongest surfmen together and connected them to shore by a long line. They fought their way through the roaring breakers and finally reached the schooner. The seemingly inexhaustible Pea Island crewmembers journeyed through the perilous waters ten times and rescued the entire crew of the E. S. Newman. For this rescue the crew, including Etheridge, were recently posthumously awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal by the Coast Guard.