MULTI-MISSION NATIONAL SECURITY CUTTER CAN SWITCH MISSION HATS QUICKLY BY EDWARD LUNDQUIST
The Coast Guard’s national security cutter (NSC) has quickly proven itself as the most capable cutter in the fleet based on extremely successful deployments in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and even up into the Arctic. Known as the “Legend class,” with the ships being named after famous Coast Guard people, the original program of record was eight NSCs to replace the 12 378-foot Hamilton-class high-endurance cutters. But Congress has funded 11, with nine of them built or ordered, and contracts with the shipyard, Huntington-Ingalls of Pascagoula, Mississippi, have been made for long lead-time materials for the 10th and 11th. The 378s entered service between 1967 and 1972, and so were much in need of replacement. As of this writing, three remain in active service with the Coast Guard, with the remainder decommissioned and transferred to foreign navies and coast guards in Nigeria, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Nigeria. At 418 feet in length and displacing about 4,500 tons, the NSCs are larger and more capable that the 378s. The NSC has a range of 12,000 nautical
The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Bertholf arrives at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, in preparation for the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise 2018. Twenty-five nations, more than 45 ships and submarines, approximately 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel were participating in RIMPAC in and around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California.
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Coas t Guard OUTLOOK
