Posted on 12/01/2006 4:14:26 PM PST by devane617
KEY WEST - The U.S. Coast Guard, one of the key lines of defense in the Florida Straits on homeland security, drug smuggling and migrant interdictions, took eight of its 10 Key West-based patrol cutters out of action indefinitely Thursday because of structural problems.
The decision, announced by the Coast Guard's top commander, Adm. Thad Allen, who flew to Key West to tell crews personally, will create a hole in surveillance and law enforcement of the Florida Straits at a potentially critical time, with the failing health of Fidel Castro.
''I would say there is no good time for this,'' said Commander Brendan C. McPherson, a spokesman for the admiral.
Allen, the commandant of the Coast Guard and former commander of District 7, which includes Key West, said a contingency plan is in the works to ensure that the hole is filled.
''We know we require a credible presence in the Straits of Florida,'' he said. ``No matter what happens [with the fleet], there will be a credible presence in the Straits of Florida.''
The eight cutters -- the Atty, Manitou, Matagorda, Metompkin, Monhegan, Nunivak, Padre and Vashon -- were tied up at the Key West Coast Guard base Thursday. Allen said he did not know if the cutters will sail again.
Their crews -- the cutters normally carry 16 -- will be reassigned, many to double up with crews on other boats, Allen said.
''These are really proud sailors and to have their cutters tied to the dock is a hard thing to take,'' said Chris O'Neil, Coast Guard spokesman for District 7. 'But we are a military organization and take our orders, say `Aye, aye' and press on. We're there to save lives and protect the country and we're going to do that regardless of the platform available to us.''
Allen said he knows firsthand that under normal circumstances there can't be a drop in patrolling of the waters between the United States and Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. A sudden mass migration, he said, would be a ''totally different scenario'' and the Coast Guard and other agencies would deploy all necessary resources to the area.
UPGRADE AT FAULT
The eight patrol boats were part of the Coast Guard's $24 billion modernization program called Deepwater, which replaces or updates the aging fleet of boats and aircraft.
The 110-foot cutters were converted to 123 feet, to add an automated small-boat launch and make room for additional communications and navigation systems. The plan was to convert all 49 of the 110-foot cutters.
McPherson said the modifications were meant to tide the Coast Guard over while new patrol boats are designed. ''These patrol boats were already at the end of their life cycles,'' he said.
But the conversions stopped in June 2005 when problems began to show up: decks cracked, hulls deformed and shafts became misaligned shortly after they came out of the repair yards in 2004.
Coast Guard engineers, joined by counterparts from Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, which were awarded the Deepwater contract, tried to correct the problems. During this time, the boats' use in heavy seas was limited.
But when additional problems began to crop up, Allen decided to dock the boats for a more thorough review.
''This is kind of a bittersweet moment for us,'' he said. ``These cutters were converted as part of the initial Deepwater project and have the technology and capability on them that the folks down here love.''
PROTECTION PLANS
The patrol boats serve multiple missions, including search-and-rescue, migrant interdiction, drug interdiction, fisheries enforcement, general law enforcement and recreational boating safety.
Allen said each cutter was expected to operate about 2,500 hours a year. Now Key West is left with just two operating cutters, an 87-footer and a 110-footer. But cutters from other areas of the country routinely patrol the Florida Straits.
Options to pick up the slack include relocating vessels, authorizing more hours for other boats and increasing air surveillance.
The Coast Guard has about 250 cutters and 200 aircraft around the country, with 52 cutters and 39 aircraft assigned to District 7, which covers Florida.
bump for later read.
Thanks for the insight and hopefully some enlightenment to the thread.
Because the Coast Guard doesn't operate in the dark. Note that all the cutters are painted white!
Really, it's to pressure Congress to fund more National Security Cutters to replace the 110-footers.
The problems with the 110-footers have been getting worse for a while; the modernization did not work.
The Coast Guard will find other cutters by pulling them from the other districts and putting them in the Seventh.
That was my first thought as I was reading this article! Some things should just never be in the news.
CWO--
How about the CG building some wooden 83 footers with upgraded engines instead of the old Viking II gas jobs---they should be able to kick them out at Curti Bay or a shipyard like Wheelers---then guys like me can volunteer again and do all the things we did 60 years ago---CMoMM Resflo 1 Normandy WW2
Well we could issue letters of marque and reprise and let the free market work its wonders! I know, privateers were banned by treaty in the 1850s or '60s but I can dream can't I?
There oughta be a place for commercial military forces tho'.
Free Companies and such. Executive Outcomes and other outfits were doing well several years ago and then they vanished from the scene. Apparently governments didn't like the competition or the unfavorable comparisons of relative effectiveness vs. cost.
Coast Guard is so pathetically underappreciated. No excuse for this imho.
I have a book somewhere called "Florida's Army" published by the Florida National Guard as a fund raiser about 20 years ago. One section is about Florida State Troops, they weren't NG.
Among the State forces were revenue Cutters commissioned in the '20s and earlier to help combat smuggling and to patrol Florida's long coastlines. Any reason it couldn't be done again? Lots and lots of good sized ships in our marinas, some even have helos on board!
Does this mean that the US Army can become National Guard units if need be??
To Thunder90: I'm afraid that could happen. In fact I suspect it has already happened -- near Waco. A certain General mentioned as a possible 2008 presidential candidate apparently made that happen. See General Wesley Clark (then again, that source may be biased).
To CWOJackson: Thank you for that detailed info. It greatly helps us understand what the rest of the story is.
Wasn't it grumman that had a HUGE problem with folding buses some years ago? It looks like Gates will have another problem on his hands besides Iraq : Grumman.
"This does not sound good. More open border problems about to occur; plus an increase in drug traffic."
Keep in mind, devane, that 'open borders' are, in fact, not a problem to the OBLers who want them open. And make no mistake, the appointment of Martinez was no accident. Thankfully, I no longer live in Florida. Hopefully, our anti-OBL leadership will put a stop to any plans that might be in the works for accepting an insurmountable number of Cuban 'refugees'.
And yes, I do find this timing of this suddenly absolutely necessary removal of all 8 of only 10 cutters, to be suspect of such an agenda.
There are no other resources to shif them to.
The Republicans ran Congress for 6 or 8 years. Obviously they lacked strategic planning as well.
It isn't aircraft they're lacking, it's ships.
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