Tag Archives: 154 foot cutter

USCG to name new Sentinel class cutter for BMCS Horne

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Back in 2012 I blogged about Senior Chief Horne, who while serving on an 87 foot WPB off the California coast, lost his life.

Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne III of Redondo Beach and three others were on an inflatable boat in pursuit of suspected drug smugglers in a panga. Investigators say that the panga was running dark with no lights on when it was spotted near Santa Cruz Island around 2 a.m. Sunday.

The Coast Guard cutter Halibut deployed its small boat, and the crew chased after the smugglers with its law enforcement lights on.

Authorities say the suspects suddenly turned, and at a high rate of speed, hit the Coast Guard inflatable head-on, throwing two Coast

Guard members into the water.

Horne, 34, sustained a traumatic head injury and was pronounced dead at the Port of Hueneme. The other Coast Guard member suffered minor injuries.

BMCSHorne.jpg

Well, the Coast Guard is remembering Senior Chief Horne by gracing one of the new 154-foot Sentinel class fast response cutters, now under construction at Bollinger Shipyard, with the cutterman’s name. The ship will have a heck of a monicker to live up to.

First 154-foot Cutters in service

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The first of upto 58 Fast Response Cutters, the USCGC Cutter Bernard C Webber,  for the US Coast Guard was commissioned this week.

The craft, at $88-mill per, will replace the 1980s era 110-foot Island Class cutters from Iraq to Alaska.

Displacement:     353 long tons
Length:     46.8 m (154 ft)
Beam:     8.11 m (26.6 ft)
Depth:     2.9 m (9.5 ft)
Propulsion:     2 x 4,300 kilowatts (5,800 shp)
1 x 75 kilowatts (101 shp) bow thruster
Speed:     28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph)
Endurance:     5 days, 2,500 nautical miles (4,600 km; 2,900 mi)
Designed to be on patrol 2,500 hours per year
Boats and landing
craft carried:     1 x Short Range Prosecutor RHIB
Complement:     2 officers, 20 crew
Sensors and
processing systems:     L-3 C4ISR suite
Armament:     1 x Mk 38 Mod 2 25 mm automatic gun
4 x crew-served Browning M2 machine guns

It is sure that the Coast Guard ordered these after several years of using loaned 170-foot Cyclone class Patrol Boats from the Navy.

You can expect these to be showing up anywhere the Navy has littoral issues over the next few decades. Of course they will probably be upgunned (110-foot cutters in the Perisan Gulf carried as many as six M2s and a Mk19 Grenade Launcher in addition to their 25mm hood ornament) when on navy duty in brown water.

They could also be used in the waters of East Africa against pirates and the warm Caribbean waters chasing down narcosubs.

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