Russian Coast Guard Naval Ensign

DW.com reports there has been a violent encounter between the Russian Coast Guard and a North Korean fishing vessel.

Reportedly, the North Korean vessel was boarded inside the Russian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). After the boarding party found illegal catch, the F/V, with a crew of 48, attempted to resist the boarding party, take their weapons, and flee the Russian EEZ with the boarding party still aboard.

The Russian Coast Guard enforcement vessel used disabling fire into the North Korean vessel. One member of the boarding party sufffered a head injury and nine North Koreans were injured, one of whom subsequently died.

Clearly fishing is taken very seriously in Asia. This and previous incidents may point to increasing desperation on the part of fishermen as a result of overfishing.

Thanks to Luke for bringing this to my attention. 

The Claw of Knowledge is a very different sort of Coast Guard web site with a very light hearted view.

The author has published a book you might want to consider:

http://shop.clawofknowledge.com/products/25-awesome-facts-about-the-coast-guard-1

I have not seen the book, but I think this will give you a good idea of the author’s style.

He also has a great story about the Bear.

NavyRecognition reports award of a $125.6 million follow-on contract to General Dynamics Mission Systems to support Rescue 21, a system that uses VHF radio direction finders to determine the origin of distress calls. The post also provides a quick overview of the system except it doesn’t seem to include Alaska and the Western Rivers (Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio river valleys) which are also now included in the system.

This is how the Acquisitions Directorate describes the system:

“Rescue 21 replaces the National Distress and Response System, which has been in use since the 1970s. Rescue 21 can more accurately identify the location of callers in distress via towers that generate lines of bearing to the source of VHF radio transmissions, thereby significantly reducing search time. Rescue 21 extends coverage out to a minimum of 20 nautical miles from the coastline. It improves information sharing and coordination with the Department of Homeland Security and other federal, state and local first responders, and can also identify suspected hoax calls, conserving valuable response resources.”

You can trace the history of the system in a series of news releases here.

October 13, 1775 is the day the Navy claims as their birthday makiing this the 241st anniversary of its founding. They have a proud history, and really the Coast Guard and its preceeding services have had a role in that history. Perhaps that is why we are included in the video above. If you look at the video above, at time 0:46 you will see a pair of Coast Guardsmen on the foc’sle of an 82 foot WPB firing an M-16 and an over and under 81mm/.50 caliber in an apparent Vietnam firefight. The Navy also used a number of the over and under mounts on “Swift Boats” but they were mounted aft.

Happy birthday US Navy.

The National Cuttermen Chapter of the Surface Navy Association (formerly the Cuttermen Association) is seeking advice on what should be included in their website.

We want to here from you!

The Military times has an article, “And the Fattest US Military Service is…”

Don’t bother to look for the Coast Guard in the listing, because we have been ignored again, but what I really wanted to address, is the use of BMI (Body Mass Index) as a standard. The standard of “fattest” was based entirely on exceeding a BMI of 25.

During my last tour, there was a petty officer I talked to frequently, who the Coast Guard was going to discharge because he was “over-weight.” In fact he was a rather large body builder, with very little fat on his frame. This was the kind of guy you want on your boarding party because he could be physically intemidating. We were going to discharge him, not because he was not in good shape, but because he was too muscular.

Body Mass Index was devised in the 1830s by Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet. Let’s take a look at the formula for BMI:

weight (in kilograms)/height (in meters) squared

Note that it is height squared, but people are three-dimensional. If you really want to look at a proportional measurement you should use height cubed.

Looking at “25,” the upper edge of the nomnal normal range of BMI, the associated weight for different heights looks like this:

• 6’4″– 205
• 5’8″– 165
• 5′– 128

If on the other hand, if we assume the BMI chart is right for 5’8″ but made the other two weights proportional to the cube of heights, the upper limits would look like this.

• 6’4″– 230
• 5’8″– 165
• 5′– 113

BMI favors short people, while the tall are penalized.

At best, BMI should be used as a screening measure, but even in this role there are better formula available.

Before we destroy a service member’s career, we ought to be willing to base the decision on actual body fat content or a performance standard relivant to job performance.