The crew of Coast Guard Cutter Jeffrey Palazzo mans the rail during the fast response cutter’s commissioning ceremony Sept. 12, 2026, in New York City. U.S. Coast Guard photo.
Below is a report from Acquisitions Directorate (CG-9).
Oct. 5, 2026 —
The Coast Guard commissioned its newest fast response cutter (FRC), Coast Guard Cutter Jeffrey Palazzo, on Sept. 12 in New York City. Jeffrey Palazzo is the 63rd FRC delivered to the Coast Guard and the fifth to be homeported in Apra Harbor, Guam.
Adm. Kevin Lunday, commandant of the Coast Guard, presided over the ceremony. Members of the Palazzo family in attendance included the cutter’s sponsor, Lisa Palazzo, widow of the ship’s namesake, the late Petty Officer 1st Class Jeffrey Palazzo, and their three children.
The couple’s youngest child, Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew Palazzo, served as the long glass presenter. During Coast Guard commissioning ceremonies, a designated person presents the ship’s spyglass, or “long glass,” to the newly appointed commanding officer, a traditional moment that marks the cutter being brought to life.
The Coast Guard commissions a new cutter after it has been delivered and undergone months of preparation, training and testing to ensure readiness for operational missions. Each FRC is named for an enlisted Coast Guard hero who performed extraordinary service in the line of duty and whose life and death embodied the Coast Guard core values of honor, respect and devotion to duty.
Palazzo’s Coast Guard career began in 1988 at Coast Guard Station Rockaway in New York, where he was assigned to Coast Guard Cutter Cape Horn. Palazzo served eight years on active duty before joining the New York City Fire Department and becoming a Coast Guard reservist.
As a reservist, Palazzo responded to several large-scale emergencies, including the sinking of the Bronx Queen in the winter of 1989, when he and his fellow crew members saved 17 passengers.
As a member of the New York City Fire Department’s elite Rescue Squad 5, Palazzo was on duty the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, and was part of the crew that responded to the attacks on the World Trade Center.
The 154-foot Sentinel-class FRC fleet replaced the 1980s-era 110-foot Island-class patrol boats. Like other FRCs commissioned to date, Jeffrey Palazzo is equipped with state-of-the-art command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, as well as other advanced systems, and has a standard crew of 24.
FRCs are a key component of the Coast Guard’s major cutter fleet and can deploy independently to conduct missions including port, waterways and coastal security; fisheries patrols; search and rescue; and national defense. These missions often include apprehending suspected drug smugglers, interdicting drugs and disrupting the maritime activities of transnational criminal organizations.
Sixty-two FRCs are in service: 14 in Florida, six each in Alaska, Western Pacific and Massachusetts; five each in Puerto Rico and Guam; four in California; three each in Hawaii, Texas, New Jersey and Mississippi; and two each in North Carolina and Oregon.
