Photo credit, NASA Landsat 7 image of Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea

The former USCGC Hamilton, now BRP Gregorio del Pilar, is at the center of a standoff with the Chinese over a remote atoll shaped group of rocks and shallows called variously Scarborough (or Panatag) Reef or Shoal.

Both the Chinese and the Philippines claim sovereignty.

A Philippine patrol plane located eight Chinese fishing vessels inside the atoll. With the Gregorio del Pilar now on scene, two Chinese Maritime Surveillance vessels are blocking Philippine fisheries enforcement action against the fishing vessels and the Chinese are demanding the Philippine Navy depart their waters; while the Philippines is asserting it will enforce its sovereignty. Diplomacy is given lip service, but the standoff is ongoing. The US has a treaty obligation to the Philippines (subject to interpretation of course) and there are calls for US assistance.

A long discussion from the Philippine point of view here.

Photo: Philippine flag planted on Scarborough Shoal, Photographed by Adel Rosario, 05:11, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

NATO and European SAR organizations are being blamed for the death of 63 refugees from the fighting in Libya. The voyage started with 72 refugees, 50 men, 20 women, and two babies. Fifteen days later, when the craft drifted back to Libya, only ten remained alive and one of those subsequently died.

The media (CNN story here, MailOnline (UK) here) seems to have concentrated on this case as emblematic of failure, but it does not begin to tell the story. According to Aljazeera, “The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that roughly 50,000 people attempted to cross the Mediterranean by boat in 2011 and close to 2,000 drowned.”

To the outside observer there seem to have been many opportunities to rescue the refugees. Not having done so is seen as racist. NATO and European Coast Guards are being blamed, but might simply have been overwhelmed.

Clearly rescue organizations are being held to a very high standards. It is not enough that they rescue the vast majority of those in distress, they must rescue everyone without fail. It is not unlikely that once, perhaps several times, these organizations responded to reports of the boat adrift, located a boat in the area and assumed the mission was accomplished.

Its not unlikely our Coast Guard will find itself in a similar situation again.

PilotOnline.com reports Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Nick Beane was one of two bystanders that cut one of two crewmen out of his parachute and dragged him away from fire and explosions that resulted from the crash of their disabled F/A-18.

gCaptain reports, Shell oil recently took delivery of a 360 foot icebreaker anchor handling vessel. This is the fourth icebreaker built by Edison Chouest Offshore in the last two decades. Two of them (Laurence M. Gould and Nathaniel B. Palmer) were chartered by the National Science Foundation to support their high latitude work.

Reportedly this is part of a continuing trend toward larger vessels to support oil drilling as it moves further off shore.

While it is certainly no Polar Class, it appears to be larger than either the Wind Class or the Glacier. Its good to know that if we wanted to quickly build an arctic patrol vessel that would not break the bank (reported cost $200M), there is at least one American shipyard up to the task.

Short video here. USCGC Waesche was in Hawaii heading for SE Asia to train with nations in that region. Maybe they will even get to do some fisheries in the American EEZ in the western Pacific.

(Thanks to Bill for the link)

A short video of WPC-1102 moving at warp speed.

Two new forms of visualization.

• Near real time winds over the US contiguous 48, and
• Ocean currents from June 2005 to December 2007 all over the earth.

Thanks to gCaptain for finding these. You can get more info and 20 minute version of Perpetual Ocean here.

The Chinese have built an interesting little ship with a trimaran hull, that appears to designed for one of their several coast guard type organizations. It is designated “North Rescue 143.”

It looks a little like a cross between a 110 and an Independence Class Littoral Combat Ship.

Of course this is not the first time the Chinese have shown an interest in non-conventional hull forms. There had been some indication they intended to use the basic form of their catamaran Type 022 (Houbei Class) missile boats as a patrol boat.

Navy Times is reporting Coast Guard efforts establish a presence in the Arctic are getting some support from USNORTHCOM.

“The Defense Department will help bolster the Coast Guard’s presence in the Arctic, the commander of U.S. Northern Command told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“Army Gen. Charles Jacoby and Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Bob Papp signed a white paper March 13 that addresses capability gaps in infrastructure, communications, domain awareness and presence in the Arctic.”

Good to see a Combatant Commander (COCOM) supporting Coast Guard programs that serve his Area of Responsibility (AOR). This is in contrast to USSOUTHCOM’s silence regarding Coast Guard needs when it came to providing ships for drug interdiction.

The Navy Times article focuses on the proposed new ice breaker, but there appears to be more to it than that. Certainly there is a need for defense infrastructure in the Arctic and the Coast Guard may be seen as caretakers for facilities that could be augmented in times of crisis. Perhaps putting words into action, DARPA is working on systems that might facilitate “Domain Awareness” in the Arctic.

(It had looked like the Canadians were ahead of us in Arctic operations, but apparently they do not see it that way.)

The world is divided into six COCOM Areas of Responsibility. Coast Guard personnel serve in all of them. Coast Guard units are either permanently or frequently assigned to at least five of them. Hopefully Coast Guard participation is sufficiently valued that they will occasionally speak on behalf of the Coast Guard.