After an evolutionary process that has been dragging on since for 15 years, the U.S. Coast Guard has awarded a $110 million (which could turn into an estimated $10.5 billion if all options are used) contract to build a new generation of frigate-sized offshore patrol cutters. It will be the largest shipbuilding program the branch has ever embarked on with as many as 25 hulls built.
The hunt began as part of the Integrated Deepwater System Program back in 2001 which led to early talks with five companies, then it was whittled down to three with Mississippi naval builders VT Halter Marine and Ingalls Shipbuilding excluded in 2014 (as was the design’s stern launching ramp).
The three remaining were: Eastern Shipbuilding Group in Panama City, Florida; Bollinger Shipyards in Louisiana and Bath Iron Works in Maine. Bath is a heavy hitter, building the $4 billion Zumwalt and her follow-ons as well as DDG51 class destroyers. Bollinger is a Coast Guard darling, creating their 110-foot Island, 87-foot Marine Protector, and 154-foot Sentinel classes of patrol boats and patrol cutters.
But both Bollinger and BIW were left smoking this week as the award for the first nine OPCs went to Eastern Shipbuilding Group, Inc. of Panama City, FL (who teamed with Canada’s STX/VARD Marine–part of Italy’s frigate making Fincantieri concern– Northrop Grumman, Quantic Engineering, and MAN on the design).
What have ESG built before? As for military ships, they are in a Design Study and Analysis for the Landing Craft, Utility (LCU) 1700 by the United States Navy, but that’s about it. They are commercial ship experienced, however, with some 150 vessels up to 433-feet built in recent years ranging from tugs to dredgers to trawlers and school ships.
The design is the VARD 7 100m but tweaked.
Eastern Shipbuilding Group’s notional design is 360 feet long, with a beam of 54 feet and a draft of 17 feet. The OPCs will have a range of 10,200 nautical miles (at 14 knots) on a set of MTU diesels and endurance for 60-day patrol cycles. The OPC will conduct missions including law enforcement, drug and migrant interdiction search and rescue, and other homeland security and defense operations. Each OPC will feature a flight deck and hangar capable of carrying a MH60 sized bird and advanced command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance equipment. The ship will embark 3 OTH boats and be capable of 22knots when wide open.
No word on manning of these ships, but similar designed craft in use in Ireland and New Zealand are being run with 30-5o man crews (with extra berths for aircrew and transients), which is a huge reduction from the current 75 person complement on the Coast Guard’s 210’s and 100-man crews on the 270s.
The VARD 7 090 design was recently selected by the Irish Naval Service to replace their older LE Roisin and LE Niamh ships. The Royal New Zealand Navy uses a VARD 85m design as their Protector-class offshore patrol vessel and the Mauritian Coast Guard has used a similar vessel for the past 20 years, so the OPC has some legit OPV lineage.
LE Samuel Beckett P61, a VARD 90m design.
HMNZS Wellington a VARD 85m design
Shrinking numbers 40…28…25..?
The OPC will replace the branch’s Medium Endurance Cutters (WMECs). Back in the 1988 the Coast Guard had 40 WMECs to include two classes purpose built as cutters: 13 newish 270-foot Bear-class and 16 1960s-era 210-foot Reliance-class; as well as a number of WWII vintage ships converted to the task to include the 230-foot Storis, 3 213-foot Diver-class rescue and salvage ships (Yocona, Acushnet, Escape), 4 205-foot Cherokee/Navajo-class auxiliary tugs (Ute, Lipan, Chilula, Cherokee, Tamaroa) and 3 “white hulled” 180 foot buoy tenders (see this week’s Warship Wednesday).
The newest cutter in the fleet, USCGC Mohawk (WMEC-913), was commissioned in 1991, making her 27-years young and not getting any younger.
Since Mohawk‘s commissioning, these 40 hulls were trimmed to 28 as the WWII vessels and a couple of the 210s were retired (USCGC Courageous struck in 2001 after 33 years service and was transferred to to Sri Lanka where she currently serves as P-621 SLNS Samudura. USCGC Durable transferred to Colombia in 2003 as Valle del Cauca. Both were removed from service due to the “increasing age of the deepwater fleet after 30 years of service, and due to mounting, costly maintenance requirements”).
During this period only one ship was added and kept, the 28-year-old surplus Edenton-class salvage and rescue ship USS Edenton (ATS-1) transferred as USCGC Alex Haley (WMEC-39) to replace the Storis in Alaska.
USCGC Vigilant (WMEC-6217) returning from an 8-week patrol. The USCG has 14 of these now 50-year old 210-footers left that OPC will replace, likely first. USCG photo.
USCGC Northland (WMEC-904) returning from patrol last week. These now 30-year old 270-footers were a controversial compromise design in the 1980s that replaced the old 327-foot WWII Treasury class cutters and others. They are the last in the U.S. fleet to mount the Mk75 76mm gun and are the newest WMECs in the Guard. USCG photo
Now, the atrophy will continue as a maximum of 25 (expect that to be trimmed to 20 over the years) OPCs will replace the 28 WMECs. On the bright side, the OPC is larger, and the artist conception image from Eastern shows a 57mm Mk110 forward, a 25mm Mk96/38 aft, and six M2 mounts as well as a SRBOC and a AN/SLQ-32(v) EW suite– which is far more armament that the current cutters they are replacing save for the 270s. If you ask me, they should add a couple Harpoon cans amidships, some Mk.32 ASW tubes on deck and swap out the 25mm for a Sea Ram, but hey…
With the figure of $2.38 billion for the first nine cutters, this amortizes out to $264 million a pop, or about half the price of the similarly sized and armed Navy LCS vessels. While these ships are very slow when compared to LCS, they are a few knots faster than the 16-19 knot max speed WMECs currently in service.
“The Offshore Patrol Cutter acquisition is the Coast Guard’s highest investment priority, and we are proud to announce this important milestone,” said Commandant of the Coast Guard Adm. Paul Zukunft in a statement. “The Offshore Patrol Cutter will replace our aging medium endurance cutters and provide the majority of offshore presence by the Coast Guard’s cutter fleet. Whether combating transnational organized criminal networks off Central America or patrolling in the increasingly accessible Arctic, the Offshore Patrol Cutter will ensure our Nation’s maritime security and economic interests are preserved for decades to come.”
The first OPC is expected to be delivered in fiscal year 2021 at which point the oldest WMEC in the fleet, USCGC Reliance (WMEC-615), will be 57. Assuming two hulls will be ordered per year, and a three-year build out, the last of newest of the current WMECs, Mohawk, could be replaced around 2034, when she will be hitting age 43.
Or, in Coast Guard parlance, just getting broken in.
With tomorrow being the 226th birthday of the U.S. Coast Guard (by proxy of the Revenue Marine Service), I figured we would get a jump on it by celebrating their most famous vessel today.
Here we see the one-of-a-kind Revenue Cutter/U.S. Navy Gunboat/Coast Guard Cutter Bear. She remained afloat some 89-years and spent about half of that in armed maritime service, making 35 patrols to Alaska, three trips to Antarctica, and serving in the Spanish-American War as well as both World Wars.
Built in 1874 by the firm of Alexander Stephen & Son in their Dundee Shipyard (Hull No. 56) on the east coast of Scotland, she was reinforced to operate in dense sea ice as a sealing vessel operating in the Far North. Crafted of live oak, with planks six inches thick and a deck of teak wood, some spots on her hull were over 30-inches thick and braced by timbers 18-inches square. A three-masted barkentine with yards on her foremast and gaffs and booms on her main and mizzen, she could make a stately 14-knots under canvass and was fitted with a steam plant that could push her at 6-knots.
Delivered to W. Grieve, Sons & Company of Dundee (and St. John), she was operated by that firm from Newfoundland until 1880 when ownership changed to one Mr. R. Steele, Jr, who continued her sealing career, completing 10 annual trips to the waters off Greenland in the search of then-valuable seal pelts.
With the fiasco that was the U.S. Army’s Greeley Expedition needing rescue from their brothers in blue, who had no such vessels capable of service in the ice, Bear was purchased for $100,000 by the U.S. Navy, 28 January 1884, at St John’s and duly commissioned after brief refit as USS Bear, 17 March 1884, with one LT. (later RADM) William Hemsley Emory (USNA 1866) in command.
After her brief naval career that involved assisting in the retrieval of Greeley and remaining associates (which can be read in more detail here) the 10-year old scratch-and-dent sealer turned rescue ship was decommissioned and struck from the Naval Register in April 1885, transferring to the Treasury Department’s Revenue Cutter Service.
Leaving New York 9 Nov after picking up a trio of 6-pounder popguns and a magazine filled with torpedoes (mines) for destroying derelicts found at sea, USRC Bear arrived in San Francisco after a fairly rapid passage of just 87 days.
Soon after arriving, she picked up her most famous master.
Captain Michael A Healy, USRC Bear. Note parrot
From the Coast Guard Historian’s office:
In 1885 the colorful “Hell Roaring”‘ Mike Healy, a dynamo of a man with an unpredictable temper, assumed command. Healy was a good skipper, and he commanded the Bear for more than nine years, longer than any other. He had another distinction as well: he was the first African-American to command a U.S. Government vessel. In time, Healy and his ship became legend in the lusty, brawling Territory of Alaska.
The Bear’s duties on the Alaskan Patrol were many. She carried mail which had accumulated at Seattle during the winter, as well as Government agents and supplies. On her trip south from Alaska, she transported Federal prisoners and other questionable characters whose presence in Alaska ‘was undesirable. The deck of the Bear often served as a court where justice was dispensed swiftly but fairly. The Bear also conducted investigations, undertook crime prevention and law enforcement. She and other cutters like her were often the only law in that turbulent part of the world. The Bear also conducted soundings to improve charts of Alaskan waters, and her surgeon furnished medical attention and surgery to natives, prospectors, missionaries, and whalers. These duties are still part of today’s Bering Sea Patrol.
“Hoisting Deer aboard the Bear, Siberia, Aug 28th 1891.”; no photo number; photographer unknown. USCG Photo
Photograph shows a Native American child and man sitting on the deck of a ship, the revenue cutter Bear during a relief voyage to rescue whalers off the Alaska coast in 1897. The man is showing the child how to smoke a pipe. By photographer Samuel Call. LOC.
In 1897, Bear was involved in the great Overland Rescue of eight whaling vessels and 250 crewmembers who were trapped in the ice and was able to penetrate to within about 85 miles of Nome, still far too short to do the whalers any good. The ship then dispatched an over-land party of’ 1LT D. H. Jarvis, 2LT B. P. Bertholf, and Surgeon S. J. Call. Equipped with dog teams, sleds, and guides, Jarvis and his companions set out for Point Barrow.
Crew of the Revenue Cutter Bear ferrying stranded whalemen,
Again, the Coast Guard office:
Before them lay a 1,600-mile journey through frozen, trackless wilderness. But the “Overland Expedition for the Relief of the Whalers in the Arctic Ocean” as it was ponderously called, became one of the great epics of the north.
During the exhausting journey, Jarvis and Call collected a herd of nearly 450 reindeer. Driving the herd ahead of them in the face of icy winds the party reached Point Barrow about three and one-half months after being put ashore by the Bear. To the despairing whalers, the arrival of the relief party was nothing short of a miracle.
The Spanish-American War saw Revenue Cutters mobilized under Naval service but the slow and increasingly creaky Bear simply maintained her annual trip to Alaska and performed patrol on the West Coast on the outside prospect that a Spanish auxiliary cruiser may pop up over the horizon.
This followed a tough couple of years during the Klondike and Yukon gold rushes from 1898-1900 in which she was the only law enforcement asset in the territory, her bluejackets having to enforce order on more than one occasion while in port. She likewise had to rescue many a lost landlubber who had packed aboard condemned craft in Seattle and set off for Alaskan waters or bust.
Off Barrow
USRC Bear Dressed with flags circa 1900. Description: Catalog #: NH 56690
USRC BEAR Caption: At San Diego, California, before World War I. Description: Courtesy of Thomas P. Naughton, 1973. Catalog #: NH 92207 Copyright Owner: Naval History and Heritage Command
Alaskan natives dancing on deck of USRC BEAR circa 1913
When World War I came, Bear conducted neutrality patrols along the Alaskan coast while on 28 January 1915, the Revenue Cutter Service, and the U.S. Life-Saving Service were combined to form the United States Coast Guard.
COAST GUARD BUREAU OF TREASURY DEPARTMENT. REVENUE CUTTER ‘BEAR’, RIGHT, WITH S.S. CORWIN, 1916. Harris & Ewing Collection. LOC LC-H261- 6165 [P&P]
She was officially transferred to the Navy 6 April 1917, remaining on her home station but under Naval control through the end of November 1918, picking up some more small arms including a few machine guns and a coat of hastily-applied gray paint.
Then, came another decade of more traditional service on the frozen beat.
USCGC BEAR At Point Barrow, Alaska, 21 August 1922. Catalog #: NH 91762 Copyright Owner: Naval History and Heritage Command. Note she still maintained her 1917 “war-paint” which was not painted over with the more standard white scheme until the following year.
The midnight watch on 10 June 1924 showing the crew in the land of the midnight sun, literally. Courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard, 1930. Catalog #: NH 56694
USCGC BEAR in the Arctic Ocean. Description: Courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard, Catalog #: NH 56692
United States Coast Guard cutter BEAR (1884-1948), in ice pads. Description: Received from Coast Guard, 1930. Catalog #: NH 170.
In 1929, after 35 annual deployments to Alaska and service on the periphery of two wars, Bear was removed from the Treasury Department and offered for sale, with a half-century under her keel. Her place had already been taken in the fleet with the commissioning in late 1927 of the purpose-built steel-hulled icebreaking gunboat USCGC Northland (WPG-49).
Saved from the scrappers by the city of Oakland, California, for a token fee, she was renamed Bear of Oakland and used as a museum ship.
In 1930, she was used as the filming location for the sealer “Ghost,” in the Milton Sills as ‘Wolf’ Larsen version of Jack London’s The Sea Wolf.
Then came the famed Arctic explorer, Rear Adm. Richard E. Byrd, USN, who was looking for a (cheap but capable) vessel for his Antarctic Expedition and he purchased the Bear of Oakland from the city for just $1,050 in the Spring of 1932.
The thing is, Bear (renamed SS Jacob Ruppert) still had her 1885-mounted 6-pounders aboard (with breech blocks) which caused Byrd, officially a civilian on a civilian ship, some heartburn in Mexican ports when he stopped to recoal her on the way through the Panama Canal to Boston, but he nevertheless appeared in that New England port in August.
For visibility in the whiteout, she was painted coal black
Leaving for the Antarctic in 1934, the ship was vital to Byrd’s successful expedition, which included the explorer spending four months over-winter on the frozen continent that is discussed in his autobiography Alone.
Note her black scheme
Returning to Boston in 1935, Byrd leased Ruppert/Bear to the Navy for $1 per year, and she was stored at the Boston Naval Yard in poor condition.
Then in 1939, Byrd’s United States Antarctic Service Expedition got underway and the old Bear was refitted with a diesel engine, her original figurehead was replaced with a carved polar bear, new canvas and rigging was brought aboard, and new spars and a foreyard of fresh Oregon pine were fitted.
She was given stores for 18-months, kennels for 78 sled dogs were built on deck, and a U.S. Army M2A2 light tank was heaved aboard to test in the ice. A Barkley-Grow T8P-1 two-engine seaplane was hoisted aft.
This resulted in her second official (not counting her unofficial transfers in 1898 and 1917) Navy commission as USS Bear (AG-29), 11 September 1939.
USS Bear (AG-29), formerly the US Revenue Cutter Bear, operates in Antarctic waters during the 1939-40 season as part of the U.S. Antarctic Service. The aesthetic of the seaplane on a three-master is pure 1930s.
She left for her second trip to the Frozen South, 22 November, flagship to the force that included USMS North Star, a 1434-ton wooden ice ship built for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, at the time the only other U.S. ice-strengthened ship available.
Photographed circa 1939, possibly during Byrd’s 1940 Antarctic Expedition. This ship also served as USS BEAR (AG-29) and as USCGC BEAR. Description: Catalog #: 80-G-1033748
In early 1941, Bear returned to the Antarctic for her third and last trip, this time to evacuate the Americans from the continent with the looming war.
USS BEAR (AG-29) Awaiting to evacuate west base in the Bay of Whales, Antarctica in 1941, she noses against bay ice. Supplies had to be carried from the base camp in the background. Ross Barrier is the thick ice on the left. Description: Catalog #: NH 56697 Copyright Owner: Naval History and Heritage Command
Returning to Boston, her newly rejuvenated sail rig was scrapped. Her spars and yard removed, only the stumps of her masts remained. Equipped with a Grumman J2F-1 seaplane and armed with some AAA mounts (seen under tarps below).
She was a warship again.
In May 1941, the Northeast Greenland Patrol was organized with Bear, her ice-strengthened Coast Guard replacement Northland, and her old sailing companion the former Interior Department ship North Star, with Captain Edward H. “Iceberg” Smith, USCG, in overall command of the force.
USS BEAR (AG-29) Off the Boston Navy Yard, 2 July 1941. Catalog #: 19-N-24311 Copyright Owner: National Archives. Note Grumman J2F-1 aircraft carried.
They soon struck pay dirt and Northland seized a three-man German weather station along with the Norwegian sealer D/S Buskø (159 gt) in September (three months before Pearl Harbor) and took her to MacKenzie Bay, on the Greenland coast, where Bear took up tow and “protective custody” of her prisoners for the trip down to Boston.
Buskø carried with a crew of 20 Norwegian quislings, a supposed German agent, and “one other dog,” who was working as a radio supply ship to keep German weather stations operating in the Far North operational. She was the first capture of a belligerent ship by U.S. Naval forces in World War II and arrived on 14 October to a big international news splash.
A few more trips around Greenland and Iceland were left for her, but by 1944, the writing was on the wall for the old warrior.
Decommissioned, 17 May 1944, Bear was transferred to the Maritime Commission for disposal, 13 February 1948.
Sold by the Maritime Commission for commercial service in 1948, she was renamed Arctic Sealer and was to be used as a sealer home ported at Halifax, Canada– her original purpose, but this largely fell by the wayside and she did not return to her old stomping grounds after all.
After moldering away in Halifax for almost 15 years, she was resold for conversion to a floating museum and restaurant at Philadelphia, PA, but she foundered under tow 90 miles south of Cape Sable, Nova Scotia on 19 March 1963.
Note that her rigging and masts have been partially restored
The old ship remains alive in the work of maritime artists.
The famous old Coast Guard cutter BEAR. From the Collection of President Franklin D. Roosevelt Catalog #: NH 1918 Copyright Owner: Naval History and Heritage Command Original Creator: Charles Robert Patterson, artist
USCGC BEAR, 1884-1948. Description: Copied from U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, April 1945 Catalog #: NH 56695 Copyright Owner: Naval History and Heritage Command Original Creator: Hunter Wood, USCG, artist
The polar bear figurehead from Bear is in the collection at the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia. Following his celebrated 1940 expedition, Admiral Byrd presented the figurehead to the facility.
Since 1980, her name has been perpetuated by the class-leader of the Famous-class 270-foot medium endurance cutters, USCGC Bear (WMEC 901) based at Portsmouth, VA.
Coast Guard Cutter Bear transits past the Statue of Liberty in New York City June 19, 2016. The Bear is a 270-feet medium endurance cutter
As for “Roaring Mike” Healy, the Coast Guard named their newest icebreaker (WAGB-20) for him in 1997, shown below, while reindeer-herding lieutenants Berthoff and Jarvis each had a cutter named after them in modern times.
Specs:
Length: 198′ 4″
Beam: 30′
Draft: 17′ 11″
Displacement: 703 tons
Launched: 1874
Machinery: Compound-expansion steam, 25-5/8″ and 50″ diameter x 30″ stroke, 101 nominal hp (1885)
Diesel engine/sail rig (1935) Diesel only after 1939.
Speed: 14kts max on sail, 6 on steam, 8 on diesel
Complement: 51 (1884) 39 (1939)
Armament: 3 x 6-pound rapid-fire guns (1885) disarmed 1935. Equipped with small arms and light machine guns 1940.
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Crewmembers aboard U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Terrapin patrol the water while on a 37-day deployment in Southeast Alaska, July 10, 2016. The crew completed the first ever deployment of an 87-foot Coastal Patrol Boat to Alaska before returning home to Bellingham, Wash., on July 22, 2016. (U.S. Coast Guard photo courtesy of Coast Guard Cutter Terrapin.)
The 87-foot Marine Protector-class Coast Guard Cutters in the past decade replaced the venerable 1950s and 1960s era Cape and Point-class boats which had seen much use. These boats were designed for 3-day patrols but somewhere along the way this got stretched to 7-day patrols with a cook added to the crew. If you have read my zombie novel (shameless plug) I feature an “87” prominently in that work.
Now, an 87 has gone to the Far North where only 110-foot Island-class boats and above have tread.
Coast Guard Cutter Terrapin crew returned home to Bellingham, Friday, after completing a first ever deployment of an 87-foot Coastal Patrol Boat to Alaska.
The crew of the Cutter Terrapin completed a 37-day patrol to Southeast Alaska during which they protected living marine resources, safeguarded lives at sea and enhanced maritime security across the region. During the patrol, the crew assisted in two search-and-rescue cases and completed 46 at-sea boardings including recreational and commercial fishing vessels.
The crew patrolled more than 2,000 miles of Alaska waterways, providing Sector Juneau with more than 450 patrol hours while ensuring a positive Coast Guard presence to remote communities and fishing grounds stretching from the Canadian border in the south to the base of Glacier Bay in the north.
The Terrapin crew primarily patrols the waters of Washington’s coastline, responding to search-and-rescue missions, maritime security, enforcing state and federal fisheries regulations and conducting safety and security exams.
In addition to the Terrapin, there are eight other 87-foot Coastal Patrol Boats stationed throughout the Pacific Northwest, including the Osprey in Port Townsend, the Sea Lion in Bellingham, the Blue Shark in Everett, the Sea Devil and Sea Fox in Bangor/Kitsap (protecting SSBNs), and the Adelie, Swordfish and the Wahoo in Port Angeles.
The USCG just put out this job video propaganda on their Gunners Mates rate, which actually isn’t that bad.
Coast Guard GMs work with everything from pistols, rifles and machine guns, to 76mm weapons systems. As a GM, they handle all weapons, ammunition, and pyrotechnics. Their A school runs 10 weeks at TRACEN Yorktown followed by equipment specific C schools that can take up to 14 weeks.
Unlike the Navy, the Coasties have no GMM or Torpedomen rates, by default making all USCG rates GMGs.
Their motto?
Nonsolis radios sediouis fulmina mitto (I bring not the rays of the sun, but the thunderbolts from Jupiter)
Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Ferdinand Petrie
Born in Hackensack, New Jersey in 1925, Ferdinand Ralph Petrie completed his art training at thet Parsons School of Design and The Famous Artist School of Illustration. He also studied painting with Frank Reilly at The Art Students League in New York.
Following World War II service, he worked for 20 years in advertising agencies and studios in New York City, then began painting full time, specializing in pencil and watercolors.
In 1972, he opened his own studio in Rockport, Massachusetts and created a number of contemporary works.
#3 High Street
The Cove
It was during this time that he began a series of studies for the Navy and Coast Guard over more than a decade which inspire and endure.
USCG Icebreaker by Ferdinand Petrie (ID# 87136). The Coast Guard medium harbor tug SNOHOMISH (WYTM-98) on a search and rescue mission in floating ice off Rockland, MA. Snohomish was a 110-foot armed tug commissioned 24 January 1944 and served in the Boston Naval District in WWII. Peacetime service saw everything from busting poachers and drug runners to saving Gotham from her own trash during the garbage collection strike in 1980. Decommissioned 1986, she endured as a yacht and commercial vessel for another 20 years, dropping off the radar in 2005.
Drug Patrol Duty by Ferdinand Petrie (ID# 87942). A Coast Guardsman mans an M60 machine gun on board a cutter out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, keeping a suspected drug runner under close observation.
Snohomish by Ferdinand Petrie (ID# 88015). The CGC SNOHOMISH looms in the background as crew members of a 44- foot patrol boat wave in passing.
Learning the Art of Tying Knots by Ferdinand Petrie (ID# 90405). Two young “Coasties” practice the skill of tying knots.
Ready for Patrol Duty by Ferdinand Petrie (ID# 88329). MK2 Rick Cremean’s equipment for patrol duty consists of an M-16, a 45, life jacket, flashlight and handcuffs at Coast Guard Station, Gloucester, Mass.
USCGC Ocracoke (WPB-1307) by Ferdinand Petrie (ID # 90233). A law enforcement team from the Cutter Ocracoke boards a suspected drug-runner’s vessel, the Dealer’s Choice in the Caribbean. Ocracoke has chalked up a number of big busts on her yearly Florida-Gitmo deployments including3,771 pounds (1.9 tons) aboard the La Toto off the northwest coast of St. Croix in 1987
Search and Rescue on the Great Lakes by Ferdinand Petrie (ID# 89510). The Coast Guard Icebreaker SNOHOMISH prepares to cast off a small boat for a search and rescue mission an HH3F “Pelican” helicopter stands by to assist.
Ladies in Waiting by Ferdinand Petrie. Two small boats tied up at pier awaiting duty off Gloucester, Mass.
Getting Aboard from USCGC Ocracoke by Ferdinand Petrie. A law enforcement team from the Cutter Ocracoke boards a suspected drug-runner’s vessel, the Omiaria , in the Caribbean. A 110-foot Island-class patrol cutter, she was commissioned in 1986 and has spent her career based out of Portland, Maine, earning a fair bit of notoriety for rescuing the Canadian sailing ship Liana’s Ransom. She is still on active duty.
Ferdinand Petrie died in 2007 but he has several books penned in the 1990s in circulation on the subject of art with a few still in publication. His art is in the Smithsonian, the Coast Guard Museum in New London, and in the Navy Art Collection.
Coast Guard Section Southwestern New England recently shared these images of an engine haul-out from the 110-foot Island-class patrol boat, USCGC Sanibel (WPB 1312). Stationed at Woods Hole, MA, Sanibel is an early “A” series 110 that was equipped with two Paxman-Valenta 16CM diesels along with two 99 KW Caterpillar 3304T diesel generators capable of parallel operation. The big engines are hauled out on occasion for rework and to check the engine mounts and refit.
Removal of the softpatch
And away we go…
Engine up
And out…
Engine room post removal
MK3 from Sector SENE inspecting the engine mounts
Built at Bollinger, Sanibel was commissioned in 1987, funded under a DoD Augmentation Appropriation, and has spent most of her career fighting with that cruel mistress, the North Atlantic, enforcing laws, conducting Homeland Security and defense missions and performing rescues. Among her other service, on 22 July 1999, Sanibel served as land-to-ship transport for members of the Kennedy and Bessette families for burial-at-sea services for John F. Kennedy, Jr.
USCGC SANIBEL (WPB 1312) 2014,. USCG Photo
Designed for a 20-year service life, Sanibel and the other earlier “off-the-shelf” 110s were given a SHIPALT that installed intermediate frames in-between her yard original ones and she will continue to serve well into her 30s.
Under Deepwater, all of the 110s were supposed to be replaced by 2009. But anyway…
Here we see the Mk 75 Oto Melera Super Rapid Mount on the Boston-based USCGC Spencer (WMEC-905). These Italian-designed 76mm/62cal guns were made under license in the U.S. starting in 1978 by FMC Naval Systems Division and went on to arm the 51 Perry-class frigates and half-dozen Pegasus-class PHMs of the Navy as well as the 25 Medium (270′) and High (378′, replacing 5″ Mk38 guns) Endurance cutters of the Coast Guard.
Spencer ran her mount with Popeye in the 1990s…
As you will note, the mount carries a great Popeye logo, complete with 76mm shells and dope leaf tattoos.
You should well remember that ‘Pop was a Coastie from way back in the rumrunner days…
However, in recent years, Spencer has scrubbed the Spinach-eating icon from their forward mount, and it is more ship-shape today.
BTW, what is up with those wonky hull numbers? Deck Division! Come on…
Now, the Coast Guard is the lantern holder for the Mk 75 platform, with the USN formally ditching the Perrys and PHMs long ago.
Currently the USCG has less than 20~ platforms still carrying the now-legacy Carter-era guns, which are kept running by BAE Systems. Those will eventually be retired as the new Offshore Patrol Cutter program comes online in the next decade. Likely replaced by the current standard Mk 110 57mm Bofors popgun.
However, you can be sure there will be GMG shenanigans with these 76mm’s until that day.
The Coast Guard’s latest 418-foot National Security Cutter, James (WSML 754), is underway in the Atlantic Ocean, Thursday, July 30, 2015. The James is the fifth of eight planned National Security Cutters – the largest and most technologically advanced class of cutters in the Coast Guard’s fleet. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Auxiliarist David Lau)
Now keep in mind that the weapons on Coast Guard cutters are actually “owned” by the Navy so there has always been a degree of disconnect, but there are still some pretty bad things that have surfaced over the course of Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) and Combat System Ship Qualification Trials (CSSQT).
While the CIWS, NULKA launcher, and air search radar were all repaired following IOT&E, post operational reports indicate that problems persist with these systems as they were often unavailable during operations. For example, the CIWS was inoperable on the Stratton for at least 61 days in 2014; the NULKA was inoperable on the Stratton from October 2013 through April 2014; and, according to Coast Guard officials, the air search radar has had 18 casualties, or failures, across the three operational NSCs over the past 19 months, with a lead time for repairs of up to 18 months. Further, the ship was not tested to see if it could achieve a hard and soft kill against a subsonic anti-ship cruise missile due to a moratorium on using target drones.
Also, getting ammo to the CIWS is a bitch:
The ammunition hoists are difficult to use in their current configuration, and the crew of the NSC prefers to carry ammunition for the CIWS by hand rather than use the hoist.
Then there are engine problems which include overheating engines in tropical waters and cracked heads at an alarming rate:
The NSC has encountered casualties with the engines’ cylinder heads at a higher than expected rate, averaging four cracked cylinder heads per cutter per year. According to Coast Guard officials, cylinder heads are not normally expected to fail at this rate. The equipment manufacturer has redesigned the cylinder heads in an effort to prevent them from cracking, and all of the operational NSCs have been equipped with the re-designed part, but the NSCs have continued to experience cracked cylinder heads even with the new design, which can result in an inability to conduct operations. For example, in 2014, the Waesche missed 11 planned operational days as a result of this problem.
However, as the report states, a series of mods, upgrades and “we’re working on it(s)” are planned.
Warship Wednesday, Aug 5, 5015: 225 Years of Semper Paratus
In honor of the Coast Guard’s 225th Birthday this week, this one is a no-brainer.
Here we see the oldest vessel in the U.S. Coast Guard and one of the last ships afloat and in active service that dates from World War II (although from the other side), the Gorch Fock-class segelschulschiff training barque USCGC Eagle (WIX-327), America’s only active-duty square-rigger.
The Gorch Focks
Designed by John Stanley, the Gorch Fock-class school ships, three master barques with 269-foot long steel hulls, 18,000 sq. feet of square-rigged sails fore and main and gaff-rigged mizzens were perhaps the best training ships built in the 20th Century.
Horst Wessel at sea 1938
First ordered to replace the lost Segelschulschiff Niobe, which capsized in 1932, SSS Gorch Fock was ordered the same year from Blohm and Voss in Hamburg and completed in just 100 days. Then, with a need to greatly expand the German Kriegsmarine soon followed sisters SSS Horst Wessel in 1936, SSS Albert Leo Schlageter in 1937, Mircea for the Romanian Navy in 1937, and SSS Herbert Norkus in 1939.
The subject of our story, Horst Wessel was a happy ship, commissioning 17 September 1936, and spent summer cruises in 1937-39 roaming the globe with a crew of German officer cadets and craggy old chiefs and officers that dated back to the Kaiser’s time.
Importantly for history, her christening was the scene of an image that is perhaps more famous than she was.
August Landmesser was a worker at the Blohm + Voss shipyard in Hamburg. He appeared in a photograph refusing to perform the Nazi salute at the launch of the naval training vessel Horst Wessel on 13 June 1936.
“He had been a Nazi Party member from 1931 to 1935, but after fathering children with a Jewish woman, he had been found guilty of “dishonoring the race” under Nazi racial laws and had come to oppose Hitler’s regime. In February 1944 he was drafted into a penal unit, the 999th Infantry Battalion, where he was declared missing in action and presumably killed.”
Horst Wessel (the future USCGC Eagle) at the Mürwik Naval Academy in Flensburg, Germany during 1937, two years prior to the start of WWII. Eight years later the situation would be much different: the academy was the seat of government for Adm. Karl Dönitz, who briefly presided over what remained of the Third Reich from 30 April – 8 May 1945.
Crewmen on Horst Wessel performing a totenwacht over a dead comrade
Horst Wessel
Her German Eagle figurehead
When war came, the training fleet was laid up with Herbert Norkus, never fully completed, sunk at the end of the conflict, Gorch Fock herself scuttled in shallow waters off Rügen in an attempt to avoid her capture by the Soviets, who raised her and used her anyway as the training ship Tovarishch for decades, Schlageter damaged by a mine then confiscated and sold in poor shape to Brazil and Horst Wessel with an interesting story of her own.
Armed with several 20mm flak mounts, Horst Wessel had shuttled around the relatively safe waters of the Baltic and came out of the war unscathed.
Coming to America
The Coast Guard Cutter EAGLE laying at a shipyard in Bremerhaven, Germany, in 1946, being rigged and outfitted for her voyage to the United States. Note bombed outbuildings in the background
Won by the U.S. in a lottery of captured but still salvageable German ships, she was sailed to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy where she took the place of the 188-foot Danish merchant academy training ship Danmark, who interned during the war, had trained thousands of USCG and Merchant Marine officers.
Horst Wessel arrived with a mix of new USCG plankowners including 6 officers and 55 men, who shadowed a German volunteer crew consisting of the vessel’s former skipper, Kpt/Lt. Barthold Schnibbe and 48 men, and was commissioned 15 May 1946, as USCGC Eagle while Danmark was returned to her proper owners that September after Eagle was ready for deployment.
A plaque with the names of her mixed first USCG/last German cruise. It could probably be considered the last Atlantic crossing by the Kriegsmarine.
Since then she has been used extensively with a core USCG cadre crew of six officers and 55 enlisted personnel and as many as 150 cadets on summer and even yearlong cruises. During the past seven decades, it can be said that she has sailed with over 10,000 swabs holystoning her decks and rigging her lines.
Eagle under U.S. Flag 1954. Note that she did not receive her distinctive red racing stripe until 1976– the last ship in the Coast Guard to do so
She has been inspected by just about every sitting President since Truman including JFK, a former Navy man.
August 15, 1962–President John F. Kennedy addressing Cadets while visiting on board the U.S Coast Guard Academy training bark EAGLE,
President Kennedy reviewed USCGC Eagle’s crew in 1962. Note the M1 Garands, still a staple of the USCGA.
Eagle allows future officers to put into practice the navigation, engineering, damage control, and other professional theories they have previously learned in the classroom.
ATLANTIC OCEAN – Photo of events aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle July 6, 2012. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Patrick Kelley.
Upper-class trainees have a chance to learn leadership and service duties normally handled by junior officers, while underclass trainees fill crew positions of a junior enlisted person, such as helm watches at the huge double wooden wheels used to steer the vessel.
The sails are set aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle on Wednesday, July 27, 2011. The Eagle is underway on the 2011 Summer Training Cruise, which commemorates the 75th anniversary of the 295-foot barque. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class NyxoLyno Cangemi
Everyone who trains on Eagle experiences a character-building experience gained from working on a tall ship at sea.
U.S. Coast Guard Academy Third Class Cadet Brandon Foy climbs the rigging Tuesday, July 12, 2011, aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle. Foy is one of 137 cadets sailing aboard the 295-foot barque during the 2011 Summer Training Cruise, which commemorates the 75th anniversary of the ship. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class NyxoLyno Cangemi
To maneuver Eagle under sail after her rerigging to a larger set of canvas than the Germans used, the crew must handle more than 22,000 square feet of sail and five miles of rigging.
The sails are set Saturday, June 25, 2011, aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle in the Atlantic Ocean between Iceland and the United Kingdom. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class NyxoLyno Cangemi
Over 200 lines control the sails and yards, and every crewmember, cadet, and officer candidate, must become intimately familiar with the name, operation, and function of each line.
The crew aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle work to take in the sails as the ship heads to Corpus Christi, Texas, July 2, 2010. Crewmen work in the rigging nearly 100 feet above the water. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Patrick Kelley.
While she has the nickname of “America’s Tall Ship” and is seen around the world waving the flag, her bread and butter are training cadets from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy as well as NOAA Officer Candidates and the occasional Navy, and Merchant Marine, and foreign allied maritime officers as well.
The crew aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle work to take in the sails as the ship heads to Corpus Christi, Texas, July 2, 2010. Crewmen work in the rigging nearly 100 feet above the water. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Patrick Kelley.
And all those sails don’t raise themselves
These ships have proven durable, with Gorch Fock returning to Germany from Russia in 2003 and resuming her old name as a museum ship, Mircea entering her 77th year of service to the Romanian Navy this year, and Albert Leo Schlageter— sailing under the name Sagres III for Portugal since 1961– all still in active service.
Truth be told, only the sad Herbert Norkus, which never sailed anyway, has been lost from the original five-ship class.
Further, since the war ended, another five ships have been built to the same, although updated, design. These include yet another Gorch Fock (built for West Germany in 1958), Gloria (1967, Colombia), Guayas (1976, Ecuador), Simón Bolívar (1979, Venezuela), and Cuauhtémoc (1982, Mexico).
In short, nine tall ships are running around the earth to the same general specs.
And the best traveled of the pack is Eagle, who is all ours and hopefully will see another 75 years under sail.
CARIBBEAN OCEAN – The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle transits the Caribbean Ocean under full sail on Monday, June 7, 2010. Crewmembers assigned to the Eagle “America’s Tall Ship” set sail from New London, Conn., for the annual Summer Training Program in April. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Jetta H. Disco.
ATLANTIC OCEAN – The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle sails through dense fog, Tuesday, July 17, 2012. The crew of the Eagle takes extra safety precautions when sailing through the fog, such as sounding the foghorn and standing extra lookouts. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Erik Swanson.
(June 26, 2005) ONBOARD THE USCGC EAGLE – A view from the bowsprit onboard the Eagle during a cadet summer training patrol. The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter EAGLE designated ‘America’s Tallship’ is a three-masted, square-rigged sailing vessel. Coast Guard photo by Ensign Ryan Beck)
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (May 20)–The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle sails into Guantanamo Bay to spend the night. The Eagle is involved in training exercises in the Caribbean. USN photo by FINCH, MICHAEL L LCDR
The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle sails through the ocean as the moon’s reflection beams across the sea. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Walter Shinn)
Seaman Katy Turner (right) of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Petty Officer 1st Class Ted Hubbard of West Springfield, Mass., work from one of Coast Guard Cutter Eagle’s small boats to inspect and clean the hull before entering port Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009. Conducting small boat operations is one of the most dangerous evolutions for the crew because the small boats are lowered manually by crewmembers, rather than by a mechanical hoist.
The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle is seen on a foggy Sunday morning at the Coast Guard Yard, Baltimore, Nov. 17, 2013. The Eagle, a 295-foot barque home-ported in New London, Conn., is a training ship used primarily for Coast Guard cadets and officer candidates. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Lisa Ferdinando)
ATLANTIC OCEAN – The Coast Guard Cutter Eagle sails through dense fog, Tuesday, July 17, 2012. The crew of the Eagle takes extra safety precautions when sailing through the fog, such as sounding the foghorn and standing extra lookouts. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Erik Swanson.
Although she long ago landed her German eagle for an American one, which carries the Coast Guard seal (while the old one collects dust as a war trophy at the USCGA Museum) and her original wheel carries her Horst Wessel birth name, it also carries her new monicker as well.
Her original German figurehead is on display at the USCGA Museum
The figurehead of the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle is seen on a foggy Sunday morning at the Coast Guard Yard, Baltimore, Nov. 17, 2013. The Eagle, a 295-foot barque home-ported in New London, Conn., is a training ship used primarily for Coast Guard cadets and officer candidates. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Lisa Ferdinando)
(June 23, 2005) – ONBOARD THE USCGC EAGLE – A U.S. Coast Guard Academy cadet takes the helm during a summer training patrol onboard the Coast Guard Cutter EAGLE. The three-masted, square-rigged sailing vessel is normally homeported in New London, Connecticut, and sails each summer for months at a time, visiting ports around the U.S. and abroad. (Coast Guard photo by Ensign Ryan Beck)
The helm of the Coast Guard Cutter Barque Eagle. Coast Guard photo by PA1 Donnie Brzuska, PADET Jacksonville, Fla.
In an oil painting on masonite, renowned aviation artist William S. Phillips depicts two icons of the Coast Guard: the cutter Eagle, and an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter, the standard rescue aircraft of the Coast Guard.
The ceremony will take place on Friday appx. 10:30 a.m. August 7 at the Oliver Hazard Perry Pier at Fort Adams State Park, Newport, R.I.
Eagle will be open to the public for tours at approximately 12 p.m. following the commemorative stamp unveiling ceremony.
In the event of inclement weather, the ceremony will take place in the visitor center across from the pier.
In Newport, Eagle will be open for free public tours:
* Friday from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.
* Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 7 p.m.
* Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Cutter Eagle by John Wisinski (ID# 90138)
If you cannot make Newport, the Eagle has her own social media account that is regularly updated and on a long enough timeline, she will be in a port near you.
Specs:
Length – 295 feet, 231 feet at waterline
Beam, greatest – 39.1 feet
Freeboard – 9.1 feet
Draft, fully loaded – 16 feet
Displacement – 1824 tons
Ballast (lead) – 380 tons
Fuel oil – 23,402 gallons
Anchors – 3,500 lbs. port, 4,400 lbs. starboard
Rigging – 6 miles, standing and running
Height of mainmast – 147.3 feet
Height of foremast – 147.3 feet
Height of mizzenmast – 132.0 feet
Fore and main yard – 78.8 feet
Speed under power – 10 knots
Speed under full sail – 17 knots
Sail area – 22,300 square feet
Engine – 1,000 horsepower diesel Caterpillar D399 engine replaced 700hp original diesel
Generators – two-320 kilowatt Caterpillar 3406 generators
Training complement – 6 officers, 54 crew, 20 temporary active duty crew when at sea, 140 cadets average.
Maximum capacity – 239 people
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