It could be worse, you could be in the Haitian Coast Guard
To patrol Haiti’s 1,535 kilometers of coastline, the job falls to 150 Commissariat des Gardes-Côtes d’Haïti (G-Cd’H) Coast Guard sailors and 10 boats. And that’s an improvement. Four years ago, the G-Cd’H only had 99 sailors.
It does look like the USCG is giving them some surplus equipment and a fair bit of training and assistance though.
The sad thing is the country once had an official (if somewhat minor) navy.
The Haitian Navy was founded in 1809 with the surplus 32-gun French frigate Félicité, which had been captured by the Royal Navy frigates HMS Latona and HMS Cherub then sold to Henri Christophe’s State of Haiti who promptly renamed her Améthyste. The British of course took most of the 24-year old Félicité‘s guns but by 1812 the ship had been captured by a French privateer named Gaspard who up-armed her with 44 cannon– and was soon captured again by the British who gave her back to the Haitians.
Haitian gunboat Crête-à-Pierrot
The Haitians continued to arm small local vessels throughout the 19th and 20th century, only ordering their first purpose-built vessel, the 950-ton Crête-à-Pierrot from England in 1895. Armed with six decent-sized (all over 100mm) guns, she was considered a well-armed gunboat for her time but was scuttled after a bruising by the larger German SMS Panther in 1902. (For more on the weirdness of this, click here and go to 1902.)
Anyway, disbanding their Navy in 1930 after a coup, Haiti reclassified the service as the G-Cd’H for the next 40 years. This was not the first time this would occur…
During and just after WWII, the USCG transferred a half-dozen 83-foot splinter boats to the service while the U.S. Navy sent three subchasers (including an experimental one-off model), all of which were out of service in a decade or so.
The Haitian Coast Guard vessel 16 Aout 1946 (GC 2), ex USCGC Air Avocet (WAVR 411), ex-USS SC-453, ex-PC-453
In 1960, the G-Cd’H received the 775-ton/168-foot USS Tonawanda (YN-115/AN-89), a Cohoes-class net laying ship with a single 3″/50 gun as the Jean-Jacques Dessalines (MH-101).
USS Samoset (ATA-190), pride and joy of the Haitian Navy from 1978-95.
After a coup led to most of the Haitian Coast Guard defecting in 1970, strongman Papa Doc Duvalier disbanded the service and renamed it the new and improved Haitian Navy. Besides ordering some small coastal patrol craft (think 65-foot PCFs), in 1978 the 835-ton/143-foot Sotomomo-class tug USS Samoset (ATA-190) with a single 3″/50, was transferred as Henri Christophe (MM20).
Christophe and some armed trawlers and speedboats lingered through the 1980s and 90s and, when Haiti disbanded its military in 1995, the G-Cd’H was reformed from the Navy’s ashes, again.